1889. Torrey, fhe ‘Booming’ of the Bittern. 5 
myself alone): rst, that the sounds are not caused entirely by 
any ordinary exertion of the vocal organs, but are connected in 
some way with the distention of the crop. 2d (and somewhat 
less confidently), that they are produced by the drawing in of 
the breath, not by the giving of it forth, after the crop is full, the 
inhalations being attended by forcible openings and shuttings of 
the beak. That they are not produced under water, or with its 
help, is sufficiently evident from the fact that our bird remained 
upon the hay-cock throughout. His bill was never for an instant 
near any water. 
During the hour or more that we sat upon the railway we had 
abundant opportunity to compare impressions ; and among other 
things we debated how the notes to which we were listening could 
best be represented in writing. Neither of us hit upon auything 
satisfactory. Since then, however, Mr. Faxon has learned that 
the people of Wayland have a name for the bird (whether it is 
in use elsewhere I cannot say) which is most felicitously onomato- 
poetic; namely, plum-puddn’. 1 can imagine nothing better. 
Give both vowels the sound of z in fzdZ; dwell a little upon the 
plum; put a strong accent upon the first syllable of pudd’n’ ; 
especially keep the lips nearly closed throughout; and you have 
as good a representation of the Bittern’s notes, I think, as can well 
be put into letters.* 
The preliminary clicking of the bill, mentioned above, is doubt- 
less the noise that Naumann heard from the European Bittern, 
without suspecting how it was made. When he got close enough, 
he says, he sometimes heard a low sound precede the bellow, ‘‘as 
if the surface of the water had been beaten with a reed.” Thoreau 
heard it also, at least on one occasion. He writes in his journaly : 
‘¢The stake driver is at it in his favorite meadow. I followed 
the sound, and at last got within two rods. When thus near, I 
heard some lower sounds at the beginning like striking on a stump 
or a stake, a dry, hard sound, and then followed the gurgling, 
pumping notes fit to come from a meadow. This was just within 
* T am aware, of course, that Nuttall and nearly or quite everybody else who has 
ever described or written the notes, has placed the accent upon the last syllable. Why 
there should be this discrepancy is to me inexplicable; but there is no point to which 
Mr. Faxon and I have attended with more carefulness, both on the day in question 
and since, and there is none on which we are more fully agreed. 
+ Summer, p. 193. 
