276 SUMMER. 



easily taken by surprize. It cannot " strike out" to the 

 same length as the heron ; but its bill is very sharp and 

 powerful, and to rush upon it would terminate the 

 plunderings of a strong bird. It is " charge bayonets/' 

 the instant that a buzzard appears, and that bird, after 

 making a circuit or two by way of reconnoissance, 

 generally flies off. The bittern can strike out a little ; 

 and even a wounded one will " let drive" at the 

 nose of a dog or the legs of a fowler; and if the 

 former be not all the more staunch, one blow will 

 send him to the right about yelping. When " in- 

 vested " the bittern throws itself on its back, and 

 wheels round and round, fighting with bill and claws 

 with the utmost determination. So that, notwith- 

 standing its harsh note, and its dislike of the society of 

 man, there are some estimable points about the bittern. 

 It lives apart, the monarch of the quagmire, and inter- 

 feres with nothing upon which man sets a value. It 

 never robs a fishpond ; and we never found it on the 

 margin of a stream large enough for fishing. Its 

 hoarse cry too, and the rather softer moans which it 

 utters in the pairing time, sounds far from dis- 

 agreeable in concert with the cry of the grouse and 

 the other voices of the summer night. It is not 

 ascertained whether its softer cry is ever uttered from 

 the ground by the male ; but the female has a 

 sort of husky murmur in that situation, which is 

 not audible at any great distance. As for its "shaking 

 the quagmire," either by contact or by the concussion 

 of the air, that of course is merely a poetical expres- 

 sion. When its cry is at the loudest, it is probably 

 three or four hundred feet (perhaps twice as much) 

 above the surface ; and the discharge of a cannon 



