BITTERN. 



The LITTLE BITTEKN (Bolaurus minutu-s}. This 

 is a much smaller species than the common bittern ; 

 but it appears to be better winged in proportion to 

 its size, arid it is much more discursive. It belongs 

 to what may be called the eastern migration, or to 

 that of those birds which range along the line of the 

 Asiatic rivers which empty themselves into the lake 

 of Aral and the Caspian, and the European rivers 

 which empty themselves into the Black Sea. In its 

 structure, especially that of the head and neck, it 

 bears a much closer resemblance to the smaller 

 herons of the eastern migration than the common 

 bittern does ; but still its prevailing characters are 

 those of a bittern. 



Birds which come into the British islands upon 

 any of the lateral migrations, of which those of the 

 eastern one arc most numerous, from the narrow- 

 ness of these which they have to cross. Most of 

 the aquatic birds which straggle into Britain on this 

 migration from the east, come by the lines of the 

 Danube and the Rhine. As they retire westward 

 from the marshes on the lower Danube, and the 

 other rivers which fall into the Black Sea, whether 

 they merely disperse for nesting places, as is the habit 

 with some birds, or are driven from those places 

 where the water becomes low before the autumnal 

 rains set in, they are divided into two sections by 

 the Carpathian mountains ; but as the northern sec- 

 tion have their progress arrested by the dry sandy 

 grounds of. western Poland and northern Germany, 

 there are comparatively few of that division which 

 reach the shore of the north sea, and consequently 

 fewer that find their way to Britain. Those which 

 come by tlie lines of the central rivers, have an unin- 

 terrupted pasture all the way ; and as the countries 

 on the lower part of the Rhine are, from their flatness 

 and humidity, well suited to the habits of such birds, 

 they are plentiful in Holland, and find their way to 

 the marshy portions of the north-west coast of Ger- 

 many in that direction, and not by the more northerly, 

 and, geographically speaking, more direct route. It 

 is on this account that those wanderers are more 

 frequently found in England than in Scotland ; but 

 though generally, they are not always found on the 

 eastern shores. The breadth of the island is not a 

 very serious journey for a migrant, when it is once 

 on the wing, as there is perhaps no bird which, on 

 its high and long flight, makes way at the rate ot 

 less than thirty or forty miles an hour. Many ot 

 them appear to fly much more slowly than this ; 

 but it should be remembered that this is an optical 

 deception produced by the height at which they 

 fly ; and if we do not take this into the account 

 we are sure to conclude that their motion is much 

 slower than it is in fact. 



It will readily be understood that the apparent 

 motion of a bird flying, or indeed of any other moving 

 object, must be lessened by distance in the verv 

 same proportion that its lineal dimensions are dimi- 

 nished ; that double the distance, for instance, wil 

 reduce both the apparent size and the apparent velo 

 city to one half, and the same in proportion for al 

 other distances. This, though it is seldom noticec 

 in popular works on natural history, is a very impor- 

 tant consideration for the observer of nature ; and ii 

 the case of birds especially, the most erroneous esti- 

 mates of their rates of flight wi'l be made, if distance 

 is not taken into the account, and the effect which it 

 has in diminishing the apparent rate. The motior 



of the sun, which though only an apparent motion as 

 egards that luminary, is the exact counterpart and 

 consequently the exact measure of the motion of the 

 earth. Now this apparent motion of the sun appears, 

 n consequence of the vast distance of that luminary, 

 so slow and lagging that we can hardly perceive it ; 

 and yet is more than two thousand times faster than 

 the swiftest light carriage that ever steamed along 

 the Liverpool and Manchester railway. If distance 

 can reduce so tremendously rapid a motion as this 

 a motion which would not only dash into atoms 

 any two masses of any known substance, if they were 

 to come into collision at that rate, but which would 

 instantly kindle and dissipate into their constituent 

 gases two globes of ice ; then we can easily under- 

 stand how distance will deceive us in the flight of 

 birds at different elevations. The swift at steeple 

 height, appears to us to move more slowly than a 

 barn-door fowl ; a:;d yet it will make a turn round 

 the churchyard in the time that the fowl takes to 

 flutter across the pathway. Wild geese too, seem 

 to get on very slowly ; but they very soon clear the 

 horizon, or pass along that space over which they 

 are visible, which to a good eye is at least two or 

 three miles. We are of course liable to fall into 

 the same error when we look at any birds on their 

 elevated migratory flights ; and by not making allow- 

 ance for the optical deception stated above, we are 

 apt to wonder at the effort made by such a bird as 

 the little bittern when we are told of its alighting in 

 those places of the British islands which are remote 

 from its native localities ; whereas, in truth, the 

 stretch across such an island as ours, is no more 

 fatigue to the bird than those walks which we take, 

 absolutely for the purpose of refreshing (that is, 

 resting) our limbs, are to us. 



The little bittern is about fifteen inches in length. 

 and tw r o feet in the extent of the wings. Its bill is 

 about two inches long, brownish-horn colour at the 

 tip, and partly along the ridge, but greenish yellow 

 at the sides and the base. In form and colour it is a 

 more aquatic bill than that of the common bittern ; 

 and the neck is more borne in flexures. The feet 

 are dull green, and the feathers on the tibius reach 

 down to the tarsal joints, which shows that it is not 

 much of a wader ; and also that though it may find 

 more of its food in the water than the common bit- 

 tern does, it does not frequent such moist and tangled 

 places during its walks. The feet are otherwise formed 

 like those of the common bittern, and, as in that, the 

 inner margin of the middle claw is slightly serrated. 

 It is a much more beautiful bird than the common 

 bittern. In the male, the head, upper part of the 

 neck, back, and tail are glossy black \\ith green 

 reflections ; the chin, throat, and breast are buff 

 colour, and the rest of the under part is white. The 

 scapulars are relieved by a chesnut-coloured spot ; 

 the lesser coverts are buff'; the larger whitish, and 

 the quills black without any gloss of colour. The 

 female is smaller than the male, and so differently 

 coloured that it has sometimes been described as a 

 distinct species. Where the upper part of the male 

 is black with reflections, that of the female is brown 

 with rust-coloured margins to the feathers ; and the 

 buff on the under part is much paler, and appears 

 chiefly on the margins of the feathers. 



Of the few specimens which have been observed 

 in this country, some have been found perching on 

 the stumps of trees by the margins of rivers, and 



