Lost British Birds. 



21 



to no bittern, or bird, but to the demon or spirit of the 

 desolate places of the earth. There is, said Eobert Mudie, 

 a " sublimity " about the bittern. 



In Norfolk and Lincolnshire it was formerly most abun- 

 dant, and Stevenson tells of marshmen who were not 

 satisfied to sit down to their Sunday dinner without a 

 roasted bittern on the table. The same writer says : " For 

 at least fifteen or sixteen years, prior to 1866, I believe 



this species had altogether deserted us in the breeding- 

 season, but in the summer of 1866, the boom of a bittern 

 was again heard at Hoveton broad." Two years later, in 

 the summer of 1868, two eggs were found at Upton, and one 

 young bird was taken. No later record of their breeding 

 exists. But as a migrant, or straggler, the bird still comes 

 to our shores, especially in severe winters, but only to perish 

 miserably at the hands of man. For at the present time a 

 bittern is no sooner seen than shot, and the event, together 

 with the name of the local bird-stufFer, who receives the 



