110 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS 



their heads, for they are covered with a thick down, 

 and follow the old ones like chickens. They say that a 

 lapwing, the further you are from her nest, the more 

 clamorous she is, and the greater coil she keeps ; the 

 nearer you are to it, the quieter she is, and less con- 

 cerned she seems, that she may draw you away from 

 the true place, and induce you to think it is where it is 

 not."^ 



Bittern 



"They say that it gives always an odd number of 

 bombs [booms] at a time, viz., three or five ; which in 

 my own observation I have found to be false. It 

 begins to bellow about the beginning of February, 

 and ceases when breeding-time is over. The common 

 people are of opinion that it thrusts its bill into a 

 reed, by the help whereof it makes that lowing or 

 drumming noise. Others say that it thrusts its bill 

 into the water, or mud, or earth, and by that means 

 imitates the lowings of an ox. It hides itself, commonly 

 among reeds and rushes, and sometimes lies in hedges 

 with its neck and head erect. 



" In the autumn after sunset these birds are wont 

 to soar aloft in the air with a spiral ascent, so high 

 till they get quite out of sight, in the meantime making 

 a singular kind of noise, nothing like to lowing." ^ 



Kingfisher 

 " It is a vulgar persuasion that this bird, being hung 

 up on an untwisted thread by the bill in any room, will 



1 p. 308. 



Tp. 282-3. "Few people in Britain have ever heard its loud and awful 

 voice" (Newton, Dicty. of Birds). The last bittern's egg was taken in 

 Norfolk in 1868, and the "boom" was last heard in 1886 (Southwell, Notts 

 and Letters of Sir T. Browne, p. 17 n.). Since this note was written the 

 bittern has again bred in Norfolk, as Miss E. L. Turner states in British 

 Birds, Sept. 1911. 



