562 



A HISTORY OF 



CHAPTER CXVII. 



OF THE BITTERN, OR MIRE-DRUM. 



THOSE who have walked in an evening 

 by the sedgy sides of unfrequented rivers, must 

 remember a variety of notes from different 

 water-fowl: the loud scream of the wild-goose, 

 the croaking of the mallard, the whining of 

 the lapwing, and the tremulous neighing of 

 the jack-snipe. But of all those sounds, there 

 is none so dismally hollow as the booming of 

 the bittern. It is impossible for words to give 

 those who have not heard this evening-call an 

 adequate idea of its solemnity, h is like the 

 interrupted bellowing of a bull, but hollower, 

 and louder, and is heard at a mile's distance, 

 as if issuing from some formidable being that 

 resided at the bottom of the waters. 



The bird, however, that produces this terri- 

 fying sound, is not so big as a heron, with a 

 weaker bill, not above four inches long. It 

 differs from the heron chiefly in its colour, 

 which is in general of a paleish yellow, spot- 

 ted and barred with black. Its wind-pipe 

 is fitted to produce the sound for which it is 

 remarkable ; the lower part of it dividing into 

 the lungs, is supplied with a thin loose mem- 

 brane, that can be filled with a large body of 

 air, and exploded at pleasure. These bellow- 

 ing explosions are chiefly heard from the be- 

 ginning of spring to the end of autumn; and, 

 however awful they may seem to us, are the 

 calls to courtship, or of connubial felicity. 



From the loudness and solemnity of the note, 

 many have been led to suppose, that the bird 

 made use of external instruments to produce 

 it, and that so small a body could never eject 

 such a quantity of tone. The common people 

 are of opinion, that it thrusts its bill into a 

 reed, that serves as a pipe for swelling the note 

 above its natural pitch ; while others, and in 

 this number we find Thomson the poet, imagine 

 that the bittern puts its head under water, and 

 then violently blowing produces its boomings. 

 The fact is, that the bird is sufficiently pro- 

 vided by nature for this call ; and it is often 

 heard where there are neither reeds nor waters 

 to assist its sonorous invitations. 



It hides in the sedges by day, and begins 

 its call in the evening, booming six or eight 

 times, and then discontinuing for ten or twenty 

 minutes, to renew the same sound. This is a 

 call it never gives but when undisturbed, and at 

 liberty. When its retreats among the sedges 

 are invaded, when it dreads or expects the 

 approach of an enemy, it is then perfrcily 

 silent. This call it has never been heard to 

 utter when taken or brought up in domestic 

 captivity ; it continues under the control of 

 man a mute forlorn bird, equally incapable of 

 attachment or instruction. But though its 

 boomings are always performed in solitude, it 

 has a scream which is generally heard upon 

 the seizing its prey, and which is sometimes 

 extorted by fear. 



This bird, though of the heron kind, is yet 

 neither so destructive nor so voracious. It is 

 a retired timorous animal, concealing itself in 

 the midst of reeds and marshy places, and liv- 

 ing upon frogs, insects, and vegetables ; and 

 though so nearly resembling the heron in 

 figure, yet differing much in manners and ap- 

 petites. As the heron builds on the tops of 

 the highest trees, the bittern lays its nest in a 

 sedgy margin, or amidst a tuft of rushes. The 

 heron builds with sticks and wool ; the bittern 

 composes its simpler habitation of sedges, the 

 leaves of water-plants, and dry rushes. The 

 heron lays four eggs; the bittern generally 

 seven or eight, of an ash-green colour. The 

 heron feeds its young for many days; the bit- 

 tern in three days leads its little ones to their 

 food. In short, the heron is lean and cada- 

 verous, subsisting chiefly upon animal food ; 

 the bittern is plump and fleshy, as ii feeds 

 upon vegetables, when more nourishing food is 



wanting. 



It cannot be, therefore, from its voracious 

 annetites, but its hollow boom, that the bittern 

 is held in such detestation by the vulgar. I 

 remember, in the place where I was a boy, 

 with what terror this bird's note affected the 

 whole village ; they considered it as the pre- 



