130 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



ing syllables that when pronounced are supposed to 

 imitate the utterances of this or that bird. In this case, 

 however, there is more chance because of the very un- 

 birdlike character of the sound. I tind many descrip- 

 tions of the bittern's voice, and add the above to the 

 series because I noted it down under very favorable cir- 

 cumstances. Some months ag^o, while I was v/atchinoj 

 minnows in a meadow brook, and at the time wholly 

 concealed by the surrounding reeds, a bittern alighted 

 within ten paces, and soon after, it being near sundown, 

 uttered its strange cry. Immediately I j^ut the sound 

 into words while they were yet ringing in my ears, and 

 had an opj^ortunity of comparing and correcting them 

 before the bird saw me and flew away. For this reason, 

 I submit them as better than most of the published de- 

 scriptions of this bird's cry. 



The so-called "booming" is not, I think, wdiolly a 

 vocal sound. In this case, the bird's beak, when it ut- 

 tered the cry, was not quite withdrawn from the water, 

 and its voice, therefore, was materially modified by this 

 fact. Indeed, the sound is not unlike, in some respects, 

 that caused by the sudden withdrawal of a stout stick 

 from tenacious mud, except that it is a series of three 

 such sounds, instead of a single report. 



My experience in listening to bitterns also leads me 

 to conclude that the individual variation in their utter- 

 ances is very marked, and most authors who have at- 

 tempted to describe them have given their impressions 

 of the sound as heard at a distance. If I correctly un- 

 derstand what is meant by " booming," a term constant- 

 ly applied to the bittern, then I have never heard this 



