ARDEID.'E. 



371 





':M#^ 



aifif^ 







THE COMMON BITTERN. 



BoTAURUS STELLARis (LinnKus). 



The extensive reed-swamps and marshes, to which the liiitern 

 resorts during the breeding-season, have greatly decreased of late 

 years in England, owing to drainage and cultivation ; nevertheless, 

 its eggs were occasionally found in the Broad-district of Norfolk 

 down to March 30th 1868, and as recently as August 18S6 a 

 young bird with down still adhering to it was obtained there. Before 

 the reclamation of the East Anglian fens the ' Butter-bump,' as it 

 was called from its note, bred in them annually, as it did also in 

 other suitable portions of England and Wales ; while even at the 

 present day so many of the birds which regularly visit us are shot in 

 spring, that, if a little forbearance were exercised, the ' boom ' of the 

 Bittern might again be heard in our land. To Scotland it is an 

 irregular visitor, though widely diffused, except in the outer islands ; 



