448 



The Living Animals of the World 



made by thrusting the bill into a reed. Mr. J. E. Harting is one of the few who have 

 actually watched the bird during the production of the sound, and from him we gather 

 that it is made by expelling the air from the throat whilst the head is held vertically upwards. 

 The protective coloration and the peculiar habits associated therewith have only recently 

 been recognised. These birds, when threatened, do not take flight, but immediately bring the 

 body and the long neck and pointed head into one vertical line, and remain absolutely motion- 

 less so long as the cause of alarm persists. The peculiar coloration of the body harmonises 

 so perfectly with the surrounding undergrowth, that, as just remarked, detection is well-nigh 

 impossible. Although the pattern and tone of the coloration vary in the various species of 

 bittern which occur all over the world this principle of protection obtains in all. 



The drainage of the fens is answerable for the extinction of the bittern in England. 

 We would draw special attention to the great length of the feathers on the neck, which, when 

 the bird is excited, are extended on either side to form an enormous feather shield. This is 

 admirably shown in the photograph below, which represents a bittern preparing to strike. It is a 

 curious fact that, when extended, the hind part of the neck is protected only by a thin coat of 

 down. When the excitement has passed, the elongated feathers fall again, and, curling round 

 the unprotected area, give the bird the appearance of having a perfectly normally clothed neck. 

 A wounded bittern will strike at either man or dog, and is extremely dangerous, owing to the 

 sharpness of its dagger-like bill. If a dog advances on one not entirely disabled, the bird imme- 

 diately turns itself upon its back, and fights with beak and claws, after the fashion of a wounded 

 hawk or owl. Owing to the way in which the neck can be tucked up, by throwing it into a 

 series of curves, and then suddenly extended, great danger attends the approach of the unwary. 

 The bittern is by no means particular in its choice of food, small mammals, birds, lizards, 

 frogs, fishes, and beetles being alike palatable. The writer remembers taking from the gullet 

 and stomach of one of these birds no less than four water-voles, three of which had apparently 

 been killed only just before it was shot, for the process of digestion had hardly begun. 



On migration these birds appear to travel in flocks of considerable size, since Captain 

 Kelham reports having seen as many as fifty together high up in the air, when between 

 Alexandria and Cairo. Curiously enough, they flew like " a gaggle " of geese in the form of 

 a V ; but every now and then he noticed they, for some reason or other, got into great confusion. 

 At one time the flesh of the bittern was much esteemed as food for the table, being 

 likened in taste and colour to the leveret, with some of the flavour of wild-fowl. Sir Thomas 

 Browne, who flourished during the middle of the seventeenth century, says that young bitterns 



were considered better eating than 

 young herons. 



In the fourteenth century it bred 

 in considerable numbers in the fens of 

 Cambridgeshire, and was so highly 

 esteemed as a bird for the table that 

 the taking of its eggs was forbidden. 

 At a court-baron of the Bishop of Ely, 

 according to Mr. J. E. Harting, held 

 at Littleport in the eleventh year of 

 the reign of Edward II., several people 

 were fined for taking the eggs of 

 the bittern and carrying them out of 

 the fen, to the great destruction of the 

 birds. Decreasing steadily in numbers, 

 the bittern continued to breed in 



piiotoijj.i.Bonhotc,E fl . Britain till the middle of the nine- 



COMMON BITTERN. tecnth century, one of the last nests 



Preparing to attack (side view). being taken in Norfolk in 1868. 



