THE MARSH DWELLERS 163 
barrens three years before. Then it sounded like the 
thudding of a mallet on a stake, for its quality 
always depends on the nature of the country across 
which it travels. From the top of our knoll we saw a 
rare sight. In the open pasture by the edge of the 
marsh stood a bird between two and three feet high, 
of a streaked brown color, with a black stripe down 
each side of its neck. Even as we watched, the bird 
began a series of extraordinary actions. Hunching 
its long neck far down between its shoulders, it 
suddenly thrust it up. As each section straightened, 
there came to us across the pasture the thudding, 
bubbling, watery note which we had first heard. 
It seemed impossible that a bird could make such a 
volume of sound. At times, after each “‘bloop,” 
would come the sharp click of the bill as it rapidly 
opened and shut. Finally the singer convulsively 
straightened the last kink out of its neck and with a 
last retching note thrust its long yellow beak straight 
skyward. We had seen an American bittern boom — 
a rarer sight even than the drumming of a ruffed 
grouse or the strange flight-song of the woodcock at 
twilight. Suddenly the bittern stopped and, hunch- 
ing its neck, stepped stealthily, like a little old bent 
man, into the sedges. With its long beak pointing 
directly upward, it stood motionless and seemed to 
melt into the color of the withered rushes. One look 
away, and it was almost impossible for the eye to 
pick the bird out from its cover. 
I turned to look at the marsh hawks just in time 
to see the female alight on the ground by a stunted 
