BIRDS. 469 



The European species makes a roar which may be sometimes heard for 

 three or four miles ; and in making it the bird " lifted the head, threw it 

 backwards, put it again rapidly into the water, producing a roar that 

 startled me." The American bittern is not so loud-voiced as his European 

 relative ; and the character of his note is well described by his common 

 name stake-driver. " I have often," says Mr. Samuels, " when in the 

 forests of northern Maine, been deceived by this note into believing that 

 some woodman or settler was in my neighborhood, and discovered my 

 mistake only after toiling through swamp and morass for perhaps half a 

 mile." The note, as the writer has often heard it, sounds almost exactly 

 like the stroke of a mallet on a fence-post ; yet, strange as it is, it is a 

 love-song, and doubtless sounds far more sweet to Mrs. Bittern than would 

 any lay of Herrick or Suckling. 



The shoe-bills and boat-bills are aberrant relatives of the herons, but 

 are but remotely allied to each other. In each the bill is very broad, and 

 has a remote resemblance to the objects embraced in its name. The shoe- 

 bills are African, while the boat-bills, one of which is represented in the 

 plate of the anaconda, opposite page 374, are South American. 



The group of storks are hardly represented in the forms of the United 

 States ; but in South America there are some, while in the Old World they 

 play an important role. There dwell the curious adjutants, " whose thin 

 long legs," as Mr. Forbes expresses it, " always suggested the idea that 

 they had escaped from some taxidermist's hands when he had just got the 

 length of running the wires up their shanks." These birds furnish the 

 valuable marabou plumes, once so highly esteemed as ornaments. They 

 are scavengers ; and in some parts of the East Indies they are protected 

 by law. 



Then there is the familiar stork, which each winter goes to Africa, 

 returning in the spring to make her nest on the roof of some German 

 dwelling, and bringing all sorts of luck and good fortune with it. Year 

 after year as the trees open their leaves, back come the same pair of storks 

 to the roof -tree ; and soon the callow brood is hatched. In their flight 

 they closely resemble the flocks of wild geese in this country. 



The wood-ibis is our only common member of the stork family in the 

 United States ; and this does not wander north of the southern states. 

 There, however, it is common ; and Audubon speaks of flocks of " several 

 thousands," though now no such numbers are seen. They breed abun- 

 dantly in Florida as well as in the southwestern territories. Dr. Cones, 

 among others, has written an interesting account of their habits and their 

 appearance in flight, from which we make some abstracts. The carriage 

 is firm and sedate ; each leg is slowly lifted and planted with deliberate 



