The Specialist Loses Control SIS 



of mixed alder and cottonwood, entered a culvert, and 

 trickled into one of the marsh channels. Small as it was, on 

 that day it was the only running water in the marsh. 



As I stood in the drifted snow a small object burst from 

 the shelter of the bank and skittered across the water and 

 along the edge. When it stopped I noticed the reddish body 

 and its striped rear underparts. The bird stepped into the 

 shallow stream and, disregarding my motionless presence, 

 began to probe with its long bill. I thought that here was one 

 Virginia rail that had avoided the dole handed out by the 

 canoehouse manager. I watched the bird for it was a rare op- 

 portunity to see a rail feeding. It probed as busily as pectoral 

 sandpipers or Wilson snipes, its bill constantly pumping up 

 and down and its feet leading it into new positions. Then I 

 saw a larger shape a few yards away in the brush. It ap- 

 proached slowly along the stream. It was another bittern. 



For the past two weeks I had been watching a bittern 

 under much different conditions. That bird had been a spe- 

 cialist deprived of control over life. Every time I had seen it 

 in the snow I had the feeling I was looking at an uncompre- 

 hending creature which was struggling to do what could not 

 possibly be done, as a man might labor hour after hour 

 through a waterless desert because activity was the only 

 thing left to him. That bird had been weak, helpless, and 

 doomed. 



But along this stream I was looking at another type, a con- 

 fident bird, a bird in good condition. It advanced step by 

 step along the streamlet. Food may not have been plentiful 

 but there was enough to sustain it. A bittern knew all the 

 tricks of living and hunting under such conditions. The tiny 

 stream held things which it could find and take and liked. I 

 thought it strange that the other bird had not left its ice- 

 bound habitat and traveled the short distance to the place 

 where life was reasonably certain. Then I remembered the 

 solitary habits and uncertain temper of bitterns and I thought 



