HISTORY OF 



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 bit- 

 tern puts its head under water, and then violent- 

 ly blowing produces its boomings. The fact is, 

 that the bird is sufficiently provided 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 perfectly silent. This call it has never 

 been heard to utter when taken or brought up in 

 domestic captivity ; it continues under the con- 

 troul of man a mute forlorn bird, equally inca- 

 pable 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 living upon 

 frogs, insects, and vegetables j and though so 

 nearly resembling the heron in figure, yet differ- 

 ing much in manners and appetites. As the 

 heron builds on the tops of the highest trees, the 



