THE BITTERN. 153 



streams to the lower swamps and marshes, where, from the 

 warmer climate and the thicker mantle of dry vegetables, the 

 frost is much longer in taking effect. 



Though the bittern is an unoffending and retiring bird, 

 easily hawked when on a low flight, and not very difficult to 

 shoot when out of its cover, as it flies short ; and soon alights, 

 it is both a vigilant and powerful bird on the ground. It 

 stands high, so that, without being seen, it sees all around it, 

 and it is not easily surprised. Its bill, too, is so strong yet 

 so sharp, and the thrust of it is given with so much rapidity 

 and effect, that other animals are not very fond of going in 

 upon it ; and even when it is wounded, it will make a very 

 determined resistance, throwing itself on its back, so that it 

 may use both its bill and its claws. 



It would not be very consistent to regret the diminished 

 and diminishing numbers of the bittern, a bird which, 

 wherever it appears, proclaims that there the resources of the 

 country are running to waste : for such is the indication 

 given by the bird. It is not an indication of hopeless sterility. 

 It does not inhabit the naked height on which the fertilizing 

 rain not only falls without producing fertility, but washes 

 away the small quantity of mould which the few starving 

 plants produce. The elements of a more profitable crop are 

 always in existence in the abode of the bittern ; and, though 

 the quantity of skill and labour required from man varies 

 much, those elements can always to a certain extent be 

 claimed to man's use. The place where I used to hear the 

 bittern every evening during the first month after the storm 

 broke, for it began before the short supplemental winter, 

 the fleeting storm of flaking snow which used to season the 

 lapwing, has been in great part under crop for years. Where 

 that is not the case, it has been planted ; and the partridge 

 and the ring-dove have come close upon the margin of what 

 remains of the mere. The winding stream "the burnie 



