102 THE BIEDS OF DEVOX. 



then seeking warm drains and orchard-hedges, where they were easily 

 Hushed and shot. One which fell to our gun when we were sniping in 

 •mild weather chanced to be only winged, and on our approach threw 

 itself i;pon its back upon the ground and made a desperate defence, striking 

 upwards with its claws and beak, so that it had to be warily handled. 

 There is a considerable difference in size in specimens of the Common 

 Bittern, the females being always smaller than the males, and sometimes, 

 as we have ourselves detected in one or two instances, extra small 

 examples are erroneously set down as American Bitterns; and there is a 

 considerable degree of variety in the plumage, very light exami)les being 

 occasionally met with, as well as very dark ones. Mr. H. Stevenson, in 

 his admirable ' Birds of Xorfolk,' calls attention to the l)cautit'ul purplish 

 bloom on the feathers of the head and back of adult biids when freshly 

 killed. 



Bitterns are nocturnal birds, and are never seen on wing by day unless 

 they are disturbed from their cover. They then rise with great reluctance, 

 looking not unlike awkward Cochin-China fowls, and drop again imme- 

 diately into the first shelter. They prefer to climb up the tall reeds 

 rather than take flight, even when a dog is closely pressing them. When 

 seated among the reeds a Bittern might easily escape detection, for, as 

 Mr. Dresser well says, it looks " like an old stump or a bundle of dried 

 flags." 



In old days the Common Bittern, or Bittour, as it was also called, was 

 a resident bird in this country, and its booming cry was heard at night 

 from every marsh ; it may still nest occasionally in a few places in some 

 of the remaining fenlands in the East of England, but all our Devonshire 

 Bitterns are winter migrants from the Continent. The strange nocturnal 

 cry of the bird is emitted as it stands on the ground in its characteristic 

 attitude, in which the head and the beak are dii'ected vertically upwards. 

 The Bittern is a solitary and unsociable bird, and it is rare to find more 

 than one in the same spot of sedge, except at the nesting-time. The 

 Barnstaple bird-stuffer assures us that, even at the present day, a winter 

 never passes without two or three Bitterns being brought in. The severe 

 winter of 1890-91 produced a great number, and we ourselves heard of 

 seventeen having been shot at various places in Devon and Somerset alone. 

 The Eev. G. C. Green, of Modbury, South Devon, has informed us that, 

 when he was fishing on the Ernie on 14th April, 1887, he " flushed, and 

 had a splendid sight of, a grand Bittern, three times in one day." It was 

 quite close each time, so that he might have counted every feather. He 

 kept it quite secret for a long time, in hopes that the bird might have 

 got, or might find, a mate, and might breed in the Orcherton marshes 

 down below. But he never saw the bird again, or heard of its being 

 seen, so that it must have left the neighbourhood. 



13itterns were partieul.irlv numerous in the winters of 1820, 18ol-32, 1848-^9, 

 18.03-54. 18.14-55, 1855-5(1, '1878-79, 1879-80, 1889-90, 1890-91. One or more also 

 occurred in the years 18C)1, 'G4, 'Go, '(Hi, '(57, '72, '74, '75, '81, '!^S, '87. 



Many were shot in January and February 1855, and January 1856 (Zool. 185(3, 

 p. 50t>4), and though we can find but one occurrence in Devon in November 1866, 



