DEAD WILLOW BEND. 131 



bird " boom " when within twenty yards or less of it ; 

 but if a quarter of a mile distant, then the sound may 

 be described by that term. Thoreau, in "Summer," 

 speaks of the " bittern pumping in the fens." This, in 

 five words, covers the whole ground more completely 

 than all the essays on " booming bitterns " ever pub- 

 lished. 



I have never found tliat this bird was particularly par- 

 tial to our meadows. Certainly all the other herons are, 

 and this may be the reason why he, a regular hermit, so 

 often shuns them. Early in the spring, while his cous- 

 ins are coming, he wanders along the creek shore and 

 willow hedges, but before the middle of May he leaves 

 the lowland marshes and becomes, for the summer, the 

 lonely tenant of some secluded spring-hole in the uj^land 

 swamps. Here, until late in Sej)tember, his peculiar 

 cry will be often heard, not only in the evening, but 

 during dark and rainy days, and more than once have 

 eager frog-hunters been led astray by it, and followed 

 the " booming," thinking they heard bull-frogs, into the 

 deepest recesses of the swamp. 



I w^ould not have it understood that they absolutely 

 forsake the meadows during the summer, but practically 

 they do. 



For years I have been familiar with a corner of a neg- 

 lected cranberry bog near which there grows a large 

 cluster of oak and cedar trees. Here, year after year, I 

 have found a solitary bittern, and no bird that I have 

 yet seen passes, apparently, a more monotonous exist- 

 ence; yet could one be there at night and watch it the 

 season through, doubtless many a little incident would 



