478 ARDEID.E. 



actually looked round with peculiar expression, as if he would 

 intimate that no common customer was before him. I got 

 within twenty yards, and encouraged the old setter to go in ; 

 but he turned his grizzled and intelligent eyes to mine, and 

 wagged his tail as if he would have said, ' Lord ! you don''t 

 know what I have here.' A tuft of earth flung by one of the 

 aides-de-camp obliged the skulker to get up, and to our 

 general surprise, a fine Bittern rose. I knocked him over; 

 but though he came down with a broken wing and wounded 

 leg, he kept the old dog at bay until my companion flounder- 

 ed through the swamp and secured him. On this exploit I 

 plumed myself, for Bitterns are here extremely scarce, and 

 in Ballycroy they are seldom heard or found." 



The Bittern was formerly in some estimation as an article 

 of food for the table : the flesh is said to resemble that of the 

 leveret in colour and taste, with some of the flavour of wild 

 fowl. Sir Thomas Browne says that young Bitterns Avere 

 considered a better dish than young Herons. 



Mr. Selby says the nest is composed of sticks, reeds, kc. 

 and is generally placed on the ground near the water's edge, 

 among the thickest herbage ; the eggs are four or five in 

 numlier, of a uniform pale brown colour. The young are 

 produced in about twenty-five days ; they are fed by the 

 parents until fully fledged, and do not quit the nest till they 

 are nearly able to provide for themselves. The eggs are of 

 uniform shape at both ends ; two inches two lines in length, 

 by one inch six lines in breadth. 



In the choice of its food the Bittern is not very particular, 

 feeding on small mammalia, small birds and fishes, warty 

 lizards and frogs, which are usually swallowed whole. Sir 

 William Jardine has mentioned that he once took a Avliole 

 Water Rail out of the stomach of a Bittern. In the 

 stomach of one examined by myself in January 1826, I found 

 the bones of a pike of considerable size, and the stomach of 



