STORKS, HERONS, AND PELICAN TRIBE 57 



In Hungary large numbers of herons and egrets breed together in the marshes, egrets 

 and night-herons breeding together with the common and purple herons. Landbeck, an 

 enthusiastic ornithologist, writes of such heronries : "The clamour in these breeding-places is 

 so tremendous and singular in its character as almost to defy description ; it must be heard 

 before a person can form any idea of what it is like. At a distance these hideous noises 

 blend with a confused roar, so as in some way to resemble the hubbub caused by a party 

 of drunken Hungarian peas- 

 ants ; and it is only on a 

 nearer approach the separate 

 notes of the two species, the 

 common and the night-heron, 

 can be distinguished namely, 

 'craik' and 'quack,' to which 

 the notes of the young, "zek- 

 zek-zek,' ... in different 

 keys, serve as an accompani- 

 ment." 



The tops of the highest 

 trees are usually occupied by 

 the nests of the common 

 heron. A little lower down 

 we find the egret ; and on the 

 lowest branches the heron. 



THE BITTERNS 



These are birds of a re- 

 markable type of coloration, 

 adapted to aid their skulking 

 habits. Thecolorationpartakes 

 so completely of the nature of 

 the undergrowth among which 

 they dwell, that, aided by 

 certain peculiar habits de- 

 scribed below, they succeed in 

 harmonising so perfectly with 

 their surroundings as to render 

 themselves invisible to their 

 enemies. 



The best-known species 

 in Britain is the COMMON BIT- 

 TKKN, though this epithet no 

 longer applicable, for at the 

 present time it is but an occa- 

 sional visitant there. Once 

 it was plentiful .enough, as the frequent references both in prose and poetry bear witness. 

 These references have been inspired mainly by its very peculiar note, made apparently only 

 during the breeding-season. This sound is variously described as " booming," " bellowing," and 

 " bumping," and many arc the theories which have been invented to account for its origin. 

 Thomson, in " The Seasons," says that it is made whilst the beak is thrust into the mud : - 



The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf'd 

 To shake the sounding marsh. 



Chaucer, that it is caused whilst it is immersed under water; and Dryden represents it as 



Pnilt tf SiMaittc Phelo. Co. 



INDIAN CATTLE-EGRET 



This is a species of buff-backed heron, and earns its name from its habit of hovering round 

 cattle for the sake of picking off the ticks by -which they are infested 



