AMERICAN BITTERN; STAKE-DRIVER 65 



cult to discern it. You can get veiy near it, for it is 

 unwilling to fly, preferring to hide amid the weeds. 



Oct. 12, 1851. Minott calls the stake-driver "bel- 

 cher-squelcher." Says he has seen them when making 

 the noise. They go slug-toot, slug-toot, slug-toot. 



June 16, 1852. I hear a stake-driver, like a man at 

 his pump, which sucks, — fit sound for our sluggish 

 river. . . . Most would suppose the stake-driver the 

 sound of a farmer at a distance at his pump, watering 

 his cattle. It of tener sounds like this than like a stake, 

 but sometimes exactly like a man driving a stake in 

 the meadow. 



June 20, 1852. The stake-driver is at it in his fa- 

 vorite meadow. I followed the sound. At last I got 

 within two rods, it seeming always to recede and draw- 

 ing you like a will-o'-the-wisp further away into the 

 meadows. When thus near, I heard some lower sounds 

 at the beginning, much more like striking on a stump 

 or a stake, a dry, hard sound ; and then followed the 

 gurgling, pumping notes, fit to come from a meadow. 

 This was just within the blueberry and Pyrus arhuti- 

 folia (choke-berry) bushes, and when the bird flew up 

 alarmed, I went to the place, but could see no water, 

 which makes me doubt if water is necessary to it in 

 making the sound. Perhaps it thrusts its bill so deep 

 as to reach the water where it is dry on the surface. It 

 sounds the more like wood-chopping or pumping, be- 

 cause you seem to hear the echo of the stroke or the 

 reverse motion of the pump-handle. I hear them morn- 

 ing and evening. After the warm weather has come, 

 both morning and evening you hear the bittern pump- 



