RECOLLECTIONS 247 



from Spain, and could be seen running like Sand- 

 pipers round an aviary pool and fishing for food 

 with their graceful retrousse bills half under water. 



' The Bittern is another instance. Whether 

 in an engraving or seen as a stuffed skin in 

 a glass case, it is generally standing upright — 

 fierce, open-billed, its tawny mane spread, 

 looking rather like a lion. There were several 

 Bitterns at one time or another at Lilford ; 

 curious skulking birds, evidently trusting to 

 their colour to escape observation when ap- 

 proached ; then generally crouching ; always 

 motionless, sometimes with bills pointing to 

 the sky, and with long thin necks drawn out 

 until they exactly imitated dead sticks with 

 brown mottled bark. 



' One evening at Lilford I had the rare 

 chance of watching a Bittern when uttering its 

 wonderful "booming" note. It was about an 

 hour after sunset, not too dark to see it. The 

 head was slowly lowered until it touched the 

 ground, which it tapped once or twice. Then a 

 double note was repeated two or three times — 

 the first a faint distant grunt, the second a 

 loud hollow sound, something like the lowing of 



