THE BULL-O’-THE-MARSHES. 43 
was a soft ‘wough, wough’ of wings and a 
tustle of parting reeds as it came down. 
Then green, reptilian eyes stared at him 
out of the darkness where it had alighted. 
It was another bird like himself—his prospec- 
tive mate. 
The big bird ruffled his feathers, stood erect ; 
his throat, his very body, seemed to swell; 
and suddenly, over that wet waste of reeds 
and water, dank mist, and danker mystery, 
there reverberated the deep, bull-like booming 
of the bittern. There was no mistaking it; 
none could doubt it. Even though for forty 
years that sound, once so common, had not 
been heard in the fens by mortal ear, there 
could be no question of it. 
The bitterns had returned to the home of 
their ancestors at last. 
You behold, deep in the seclusion of the 
largest of the reed-beds, an island of decayed 
and floating reeds; all about the great rush- 
shafts are broken as by the weight of some 
huge birds settling continually upon them. 
On the island of dead reeds are fish-scales and 
the quills of brown feathers. The air is heavy 
with the stench of fish and corruption. The 
heat is stifling. 
Suddenly, out of the gloom overhead, a 
