36 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



the name of " Stake- driver " has been widely applied to the bird. Kxcept at the 

 pairing season, and when suddenly disturbed, this Bittern is, according to Dresser, 

 a rather silent bird. " He stands motionless," as Dr. Elliott Coues describes, "with 

 his head drawn in upon his shoulders, and half closed eyes, in profound meditation, 

 or steps about in a devious way, with an absent-minded air ; for greater seclusion 

 he will even hide in a thick bush-clump for hours together. Startled in his 

 retreat * * he seems dazed, like one suddenly aroused from a deep sleep ; but 

 as soon as he collects his wits, * * he shows common sense enough to beat a 

 hasty retreat from a scene of altogether too much action for him. Some such 

 traits have doubtless led to the belief that he is chiefly a nocturnal bird ; but 

 such is not the case. He may migrate by night, but so does the Killdeer and 

 the Bobolink, and many other birds not in the least nocturnal * *. When the 

 Bittern is disturbed at his meditation, he gives a vigorous spring, croaks at the 

 moment in a manner highly expressive of his disgust, and flies off as fast as he 

 can, though in a rather loose lumbering way. For some distance he flaps heavily 

 with dangling legs and outstretched neck ; but when settled on his course, he 

 proceeds more smoothly, with regularly measured wing-beats, the head drawn in 

 closely, and the legs stretched straight out behind together like a rudder." 



Family CICONIWsE. 



THE WHITE STORK. 



Ciconia alba, BECHSTEIN. 



THIS stately bird, about which so much folk-lore, superstition and sentiment 

 have gathered, so many fables have been constructed, and legends handed 

 down, in prose and verse, has, unfortunately, no other claim to belong to our 

 fauna, except for its occasionally straggling to our coasts, chiefly those of the 

 eastern counties, during the spring or autumn migratory seasons. 



