34-8 THE BITTERN. 



at a mite's distance, as if issuing from some formidable being that 

 resided at the bottom of the waters. 



The bird, however, that produces this terrifying sound, is not 

 o big as a heron, with a weaker bill, not above four inches long. 

 It differs from the heron chiefly in its colour, which is in general 

 of a paleish yellow, spotted and barred with black. Its wind- 

 pipe is fitted to produce the sound for which it is remarkable; 

 the lower part of it dividing into the lungs is supplied with a 

 thin loose membrane, that can be filled with a large body of air 

 and exploded at pleasure. These bellowing explosions are chiefly 

 heard from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn, and, 

 however awful they may appear to us, are the calls to courtship 

 or expressions of connubial felicity. 



From the loudness and solemnity of the note, many have been 

 led to suppose that the bird made use of external instruments to 

 produce it, and that so small a body could never eject such a 

 quantity of tone. The common people are of opinion that, it 

 thrusts its bill into a reed, that 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 bittern puts its 

 head under water, and then violently blowing produces its boom- 

 ings. 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 even- 

 ing, 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 re- 

 treats 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 control of man a mute 

 forlorn bird, equally incapable of attachment or instruction. But 



