100 GAME BIRDS. 



rivers, must be familiar with the dismally-hollow booming of the 

 bittern ; it is impossible to give those who have not heard this 

 evening call, an adequate idea of its solemnity. It is like the 

 interrupted bellowing of the bull, but hollower and louder, and is 

 heard at a mile's distance, as if issuing from some formidable being, 

 that resided in the bottom of the waters. The bird, however, that, 

 produces this terrible sound, is not as big as a heron, with a 

 weaker bill, not above four inches long. It differs from the heron 

 chiefly in its colour, which is in general of a palish yellow, spotted 

 and barred with black. Its windpipe is fitted to produce the 

 sound for which it is remarkable ; the lower part of it dividing 

 into the lungs, is supplied with a thin, loose membrane, that can 

 be filled with a large body of air, and exploded at pleasure. These 

 bellowing explosions are chiefly heard from the beginning of spring 

 to the end of autumn, and however awful they may seem to be, 

 are the calls of courtship, or of connubial felicity. 



It hides in the sedges by day, and begins its call in the evening, 

 booming six or eight times, and then discontinuing for ten or 

 twenty minutes to renew the same sound. This is a call it never 

 gives but when undisturbed and at liberty. When its retreats 

 among the sedges are invaded, when it dreads or suspects the 

 approach of an enemy, it is then perfectly silent. This call it 

 has never been heard to utter when taken or brought up in 

 domestic captivity : it continues, under the control of man, a 

 mute, forlorn bird, equally incapable of attachment or instruc- 

 tion. But though its boomings are always performed in solitude, 

 it has a scream which is generally heard upon seizing its prey, 

 and which is sometimes extorted by fear. 



This bird, though of the heron kind, is yet neither so destruc- 

 tive nor so voracious. It is a retired, timerous animal, conceal- 

 ing itself in the midst of weeds and marshy places, and living on 

 frogs, insects, and vegetables ; and though nearly resembling the 

 heron in figure, yet differing much in manners and appetites. 

 As the heron builds on the tops of the highest trees, the bittern 

 lays its nest in the sedgy margin, or amidst a tuft of rushes. 

 The heron builds with sticks and wool ; the bittern composes its 

 simpler habitation of sedges, the leaves of water plants, and dry 

 rushes. The heron lays four eggs, the bittern generally seven or 

 eight, of an ash-green colour. The heron feeds its young for 

 many days ; the bittern, in three days, leads its little ones to 

 their food. In short, the heron is lean and cadaverous, subsisting 

 chiefly on animal food ; the bittern is plump and fleshy, as it 

 feeds upon vegetables, when more nourishing food is wanted. 



