THE BITTERN 73 
The bittern has been standing motionless, per- 
haps in the humpbacked attitude in which the 
artists, following Audubon’s plate, have com- 
monly represented him; or quite as likely, he 
has been making a stick or a soldier of himself, 
standing bolt upright at full stretch, his long 
neck and bill pointed straight at the zenith. 
Suddenly he lowers his head, and imstantly 
raises it again and throws it forward with a 
quick, convulsive jerk. This movement is at- 
tended by an opening and shutting of the bill, 
which in turn is accompanied by a sound which 
has been well compared to a violent hiccough. 
The hiccough — with which, I think, the click of 
the big mandibles may sometimes be heard — is 
repeated a few times, each time a little louder 
than before ; and then succeed the real pumping 
or stake-driving noises. 
These are in sets of three syllables each, of 
which the first syllable is the longest, and some- 
_ what separated from the others. The accent is 
strongly upon the middle syllable, and the whole, 
as oftenest heard, is an exact reproduction of the 
sound of a wooden pump, as I have already said, 
the voice having that peculiar hollow quality 
which is produced, not by the flow of the water, 
but by the suction of the air in the tube when 
the pump begins to work. 
