146 GRALLJE. 



is in the course of being won to usefulness, the bittern is the 

 first to depart, and when any one is abandoned, it is the last 

 to return. "The bittern shall dwell there," is the final 

 curse, and implies, that the place is to become uninhabited 

 and uninhabitable. It hears not the whistle of the plough- 

 man, or the sound of the mattock ; and the tinkle of the 

 sheep-bell, or the lowing of the ox (although the latter bears 

 so much resemblance to its own hollow and dismal voice, 

 that it has given foundation to the name), is a signal for it 

 to be gone. 



Extensive and dingy pools, if moderately upland so much 

 the better, which lie in the hollows, catching, like so many 

 traps, the lighter and more fertile mould which the rains 

 wash and the winds blow, from the naked heights around, 

 and converting it into harsh and dingy vegetation, and the 

 pasture of those loathsome things which wriggle in the ooze, 

 or crawl and swim in the putrid and mantling waters, are 

 the habitations of the bittern : places which scatter blight 

 and mildew over every herb which is more delicate than a 

 sedge, a carex, or a rush, and consume every wooded plant 

 that is taller than the sapless and tasteless crow-berry, or the 

 creeping upland willow; which shed murrain over the 

 quadrupeds, or chills which eat the flesh off their bones ; and 

 which, if man ventures there, consume him by putrid fever 

 in the hot and dry season, and shake him to pieces with ap;Tie 

 when the weather is cold and humid : places from which the 

 heath and the lichen stand aloof, and where even the raven, 

 lover of disease, and battener upon all that expires miserably 

 and exhausted, comes rarely, and with more than wonted 

 caution, lest that death which he comes to seal, or riot upon 

 in others, should unawares come upon himself. The raven 

 loves carrion on the dry and unpoisoning moor, scents it 

 from afar, and hastens to it upon his best and boldest wing ; 

 but (: the reek o' the rotten fen" is loathsome to the sense 01 



