NATUEAL HISTOEY OF THE BITTEEN. 201 



during tlie night, and at rest in its marshy coverts 

 during the day. Mornings, evenings, and twilight, 

 are the periods at which its ill-famed cry is heard 

 booming afar at regular intervals, like the warning 

 gun of the sentinel, the hoot of the screech-owl, or 

 the hellowings, as some have it, of the wild hull. At 

 these times he is flying across the swamps in search 

 of his food ; but it does not appear accurately known 

 whether this peculiar and solemnly mournful call be 

 a general appeal to his species, or whether it be 

 merely incident, or antecedent to the period of incu- 

 bation. In days of old, when the bittern was a 

 frequent bird of our islands, and its flesh esteemed a 

 choice delicacy of the epicure's table, the cry of the 

 night raven (as the common people were wont to call 

 it, indiscriminately with the true night heron or 

 mire drum) was deemed significant of death, a comet, 

 or an earthquake. In the fens and marshes, indeed, its 

 favourite resorts, nothing can well sound more solemnly 

 ominous of evil than its hollow and direful call. It 

 appears late in autumn, or in winter, in very varying 

 and miequal numbers. In one year it is tolerably 

 plentiful; in another there shall be fomid few 

 specimens of the species. Bitterns were unusually 

 plentiful in the winter of 1830-31, both in England 

 and in South Scotland. 



This bird has been known to breed in our marshes. 

 Its ground nest is made on the very edges of marshy 

 swamps, amid the reeds and rushes. A few leaves of 

 water-plants, and some dry rushes, will serve to line 



