STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 201 



wounded, and was in the act of lancing itself, 

 witli a full elastic jerk of its long neck, toward 

 his face." 



The note of the tiger bittern is supposed by 

 ignorant and superstitious people to foretell 

 some calamity or other, as a death in the fam- 

 ily. "I remember," writes Groldsmith, " in the 

 place where I was a boy, with what terror this 

 bird's note affected the whole village. They 

 considered it as the presage of some sad event, 

 and generally found one to succeed it. If any 

 person in the neighborhod died, they supposed 

 it could not be otherwise, for the bittern had 

 foretold it; if nobody happened to die, the 

 death of a cow or a sheep gave completion to 

 the prophecy." 



The flesh of the bittern was formerly in 

 high esteem. In the reign of Henry YIII. it 

 sold for a very high price in England. In the 

 days of falconry, the bittern was frequently 

 hunted by the nobility. On this account, the 

 statutes protected the eggs of this bird by very 

 severe penalties. One year's imprisonment, 

 and a forfeiture of eight pence for each egg, 

 was the punishment awarded for those who 

 destroyed or took away the eggs of the bittern. 

 It is quite amusing to us in this day, to read 

 what historians have recorded about hunting in 



