132 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



be witnessed, showing that its life was really not a tire- 

 some routine, day after day. This bittern in the up- 

 land bog has always been a mystery to me in one partic- 

 ular. He or she is always alone. I have never seen a 

 pair there, and yet in the summer of 1877 I found a 

 nest with four eggs. It was a loose bunching up of 

 sticks and grass upon the ground. Two days after I 

 found the nest, the eggs hatched, and, as usual, the young 

 birds were the quintessence of helpless awkwardness. 

 Even when two weeks old, there was little improvement. 

 They were 



"Awkward, embarrassed, stiff; without the skill 

 Of moving gracefully or standing still. 

 Each leg, as if suspicious of its brother, 

 Desirous seemed to run away from t'other." 



The parent bird did not take kindly to my frequent 

 visits, and when within a few paces, would ruffle up the 

 feathers of its head and neck, partly raise its wings, and 

 " look daggers " at me ; but its courage availed it no fur- 

 ther. As I came a step or two nearer, the bird always 

 flew to a tree near by, uttering a petulant, rattling cry 

 while on the wing. When three weeks old, and before 

 the feathers of their wings were grown, the young birds, 

 by some unknown means, had reached the lowest hori- 

 zontal branch of an oak-tree that overhung the nest, and 

 there they sat, near together, facing in the same direc- 

 tion, and solemn as owls. It was just two weeks later 

 before they were able to fly. Like the young of the least 

 bittern, when very young they uttered a shrill, fife-like 

 peep, but their voices grew coarser as the weeks rolled 

 by, and a harsh rattle was the last sound I heard them 



