THE BITTERN. 249 



most shaky and dangerous bits of Snipe ground, 

 where the latter birds can scarcely be walked for. 



The cry of a Bittern in the gloaming is unnatural 

 and discordant, giving the idea to a listener of 

 some night-roaming animal rather than a bird. 

 I have heard a Bittern cry more than once. The 

 booming, marsh-shaking note which it is said to 

 utter is highly imaginative in the describer. Its 

 cry is not unlike that of the Heron, but fuller and 

 longer drawn ; but of a truth it would never give 

 the listener an idea that it was the voice of a bird. 



Bitterns, I have been assured by aged people, 

 were a common dish for the dinner-table at the 

 beginning of the present century. According to 

 Doctor Burkitt, of Waterford, they are bad as food, 

 and from my own experience in the Mediterranean, I 

 can endorse his statement. Captain Dugmore tells 

 me that in winter several Bitterns are always seen 

 about his shootings near Broughall Castle, Temple- 

 more ; and most large landowners who preserve 

 wild game can repeat the statement as to their 

 properties, and the not unfrequent occurrence of 

 these handsome birds thereon. Bitterns were for- 

 merly common along the river Blackwater, co. Cork, 

 where they used to breed before the low grounds 

 were embanked, some forty years since. 



On the 1 5th December, 1875, Mr. J. E. Conyng- 

 ham, of Cork, while out duck-shooting, killed an 

 unusually large Bittern in the bog which extends 

 from near Clay Castle, Youghal, to Killeagh, near 

 Ballymacoda. It measured three feet four inches 

 from top of beak to end of claws, and four feet two 

 inches between the extended wings ; the bill being 



