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but has his nascent being-, in the bog's. But 

 those of us who found, with wonder, our first 

 bittern nest on upland g-round, among- the 

 moccasin flowers and the hazel bushes, and 

 have gone on finding others quite similarly 

 situated, as a rule, must have our little smile 

 at some of the things we see in print, reg-ard- 

 ing- the Bittern's nesting habits. 



Seriously, save where the Bittern makes his 

 summer home among the g-reat marshes, his 

 marked preference for a nesting--site is a 

 rather elevated bit of ground among the weeds 

 and upland shrubs. We may venture two 

 reasons for this habit: dread of his ancestral 

 foes, the mink and the skunk; and a corres- 

 ponding fear of the water overflowing. Yet 

 even on the upland sites, whereon no stand- 

 ing water can invade, the nest is usually 

 well built of weeds and grass. While gen- 

 erally well concealed by the natural surround- 

 ings, it is not canopied, for manifest reasons. 



The ardent bird-student must confess to 

 having, in general, among the nests of every 

 species of bird whose habits have most great- 

 ly interested him, some one or two that stand 

 out in his memory with special prominence. 

 One of such, with the writer, is a Bittern 

 nest. 



