THE BITTERN. 147 



even the raven, and it is hunger's last pinch ere he come 

 nigh to the chosen habitation the only loved abode of the 

 bittern. 



The bittern appears as if it hated the beams of that sun 

 which calls forth the richness and beauty of nature which it 

 so studiously avoids ; for, though with anything but music, 

 it hails the fall of night with as much energy, and, no doubt, 

 to its own feeling, with as much glee and joy, as the birds of 

 brighter places hail the rising of the morn. Altogether it 

 is a singular bird ; and yet there is a sublimity about it of a 

 more heart-stirring character than that which is to be found 

 where the air is balmy, and the vegetation rich, and nature 

 keeps holiday in holiday attire. It is a bird of the confines, 

 beyond which we can imagine nothing but utter ruin and 

 all subjects which trench on that terrible bourn, have a deep, 

 though a dismal interest. 



And to those who are nerved and sinewed for the task, the 

 habitation of the bittern is well worthy of a visit, not merely 

 as it teaches us how much we owe to the successive parent 

 generations that subdued those dismal places, and gradually 

 brought the country to that state of richness and beauty in 

 which we found it, but also on account of the extreme of 

 contrast, and the discovery of that singular charm and en- 

 chantment with which nature is, in all cases, so thoroughly 

 imbued and invested ; so that where man cannot inhabit, 

 he must still admire ; and even there, he can trace the plan, 

 adore the power, and bless the goodness, of that Being in 

 whose sight all the works of creation are equally good. 



On a fine clear day in the early part of the season, when 

 the winds of March have dried the heath, and the dark 

 surface, obedient to the action of the sun, becomes soon 

 warm, and turns the exhalations which steal from the marsh 

 upward, so that they are dissipated in the higher atmosphere, 

 and cross not that boundary to injure the more fertile and 



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