268 AMERICAN GAME. 
bloody, and much more uncruel—the days when no 
booming duck-gun keeled him over with certain and 
inglorious death, as he flapped up with his broad vans 
beating the cool autumnal air, and his long, greenish- 
yellow legs pendulous behind him, from out of the dark 
sheltering water-flags by the side of the brimful river, or 
the dark woodland tarn; but when the cheery yelp of a 
cry of feathery-legged spaniels aroused him from his 
arundinaceous, which is interpreted by moderns reedy, 
lair ; when the triumphant whoop of the jovial falconers 
saluted his uprising; and when he was done to death 
right chivalrously, with honorable law permitted to him, 
as to the royal stag, before the long-winged Norway 
falcons, noblest of all the fowls of air, were unhooded 
and cast off to give him gallant chase. 
If, when struck down from his pride of place by the 
crook-beaked blood-hound of the air, his legs were mer- 
cilessly broken, and his long bill thrust into the ground, 
that the falcon might dispatch him without fear of con- 
sequences, and at leisure, it was doubtless a source of 
pride to him, as to the tortured Indian at the stake, to 
be so tormented, since the amount of the torture was 
commensurate with the renown of the tortured ; besides 
—for which the Bittern was, of course, truly grateful— 
it was his high and extraordinary prerogative to have 
his legs broken as aforesaid, and his long bill thrust into 
the ground, by the fair hand of the loveliest lady present 
—thrice blessed Bittern of the days of old. 
