BREEDING OF THE BITTERX. 207 



leads by instinct every creature to those situations in 

 which they can best find their food, so the bittern is only 

 to be met with in the low dreary swamps, where the 

 stagnant water, choked with reeds, affords a hiding- 

 place for the water-uew^t and the frog, and the bulrushes 

 provide him concealment. 



The bittern shuns the habitation of mankind ; it re- 

 mains with us the whole year, and in the present system 

 of drainage so extensively carried on, and with lands 

 formerly swamps and morasses brought into cultivation, 

 the bittern is less seen, and seeks in more secluded and 

 retired scenes a more congenial retreat. The bittern is 

 seldom found in company, but at the period of breeding 

 the male and female birds seek some sandy spot in the 

 fens, and here they form a flat rude nest, usually on the 

 ground. The female lays four or five eggs of a light 

 brown colour, concealed from observation by the rushes 

 and the reeds. The old bird sits whilst hatching, keep- 

 ing a sharp look-out to watch the approach of a human 

 footstep or a bird of prey. The plumage of the bittern 

 may compete with that of most of our Biitish birds. The 

 prevalent colour is a pale yellow, richly variegated with 

 black. The feathers are mostly very long, and the disciples 

 of Isaac Walton are well acquainted with the success which 

 the hackle of this bird ensures to the fly-fisher. The 

 young are hatched in twenty-five days, and are naked 

 and ugly, appearing almost all legs and neck, and cannot 

 venture out till after being twenty days hatched, during 

 which the old birds feed them with slugs, frogs, &c. 



This bird is not, like the heron, destructive to the finny 

 race, his food being principally w^ater-rats, frogs, newts, 

 and other aquatic reptiles. The hawks, which plunder 

 the nests of most of the water-fowls, seldom dare to at- 



