DESCRIPTION OF BITTERX. 209 



and used as a toothpick, mounted in gold or silver. The 

 bittern is rather smaller than the common heron, and is 

 in length two feet six inches, the bill brown, beneath in- 

 clining to green, and is four inches long; irides yellow; 

 the head feathers are long, and those of the neck loose 

 and waving ; the crown of the head black, the feathers 

 on the back forming a kind of pendent crescent; the 

 lower jaw on each side dusky. The plumage is beauti- 

 fully variegated ; the ground yellow, palest beneath, and 

 marked with numerous bars, streaks, and zigzag lines of 

 black. The feathers of the breast are very long and loose ; 

 the legs pale green, long and slender, and the inner 

 edge of the middle claw serrated, for the better holding of 

 its prey. The female is less, darker coloured, and the 

 feathers on the neck and head are shorter and less flow- 

 ing than those of the male. 



In extensive fens where the reeds and rushes are high, 

 it is advisable, in order to And the bittern, to beat the fen 

 Avith a steady pointer, for they often lie so close as to allow 

 the dog to point them. On those occasions be cautious 

 not to shoot too soon, for as the bittern flies heavily, 

 without this precaution you would not get a good shot. 



There was shot in the winter of 1856, in the township 

 of Tonge, within a mile and half of Bolton, a bittern or 

 wiredrum of beautiful plumage, two feet high. None 

 had ever been seen before in that neighbourhood. It 

 had been seen jDcrched on a tree during a severe frost. 



The greylag, or wild goose, weighs about ten pounds ; 

 the length is two feet nine inches, the breadth five feet, 

 which is our largest species of wild fowl, except the 

 hooper or wild swan. In 1799 one was shot at 

 Horning Ferry which weighed twenty-three pounds. 

 p 



