406 Ardeidce. 



the Rev. E. Peacock informed me that three weeks previously one 

 was caught while hiding in some brambles by a small stream 

 in one of his fields at Rockfield House, near Frome. This will 

 have been on the extreme borders of the county. And again this 

 year a fine specimen, in good plumage, was sent me for identifica- 

 tion by Mr. William Mackay, of Trowbridge, who described it 

 as shot on January loth, 1887, at Hilperton Marsh, within a mile 

 and a half of Trowbridge. The Rev. A. P. Morres says that in the 

 winter of 1875-76, three were killed on the river Avon in his 

 immediate neighbourhood; and in the same season five more 

 were procured from the neighbouring river, the Test. This is in 

 accordance with Yarrell's statement, that in one year it may be 

 tolerably common, and then for several successive seasons scarcely 

 to be found at all. I have also notices from Lord Nelson of two 

 killed at Trafalgar, the first about 1836, and the last about 1876 ; 

 of two killed on Fonthill, recorded by Mr. Morrison's keeper ; of 

 one, if not two, killed at Longleat, as I am informed by Lord 

 Bath ; of one shot in a wood called West Park, near Corston, last 

 winter (1886), by Mr. Chubb, while pheasant - shooting, as I 

 am informed by Mr. Algernon Neeld, and Sir R. H. Pollen ; 

 of one shot at Lyneham in 1850, and now in the collection 

 of Major Heneage, at Compton Basset t ; and of one shot and pre- 

 served at Corsham Court, as I learn from Lord Methuen. It is a 

 very handsome bird, and the mixture of various shades of buff 

 and brown, spotted, speckled and barred in every direction is par- 

 ticularly pleasing. The cry of the Bittern, which is a hoarse, 

 booming sound or bellowing, when heard on a dark night in the 

 lonely retreats which the bird loves, has a startling effect on the 

 hearer, and is strangely weird and unearthly. The Welsh 

 for Bittern is like most other Welsh names wonderfully de- 

 scriptive, viz., Aderyn-yJywn, 'the Bird with the Hollow Sound ;' 

 from bwmp, ' a hollow sound ;' hence probably the English word 

 ' boom/ so generally applied to the noise made by this bird. Our 

 word ' Bittern,' and the French butor, are evidently taken from 

 the generic botaurua, and thus has been generally thought to be 

 derived (as Professor Skeat observes) from bos taurus, from the 



