BIRDS OF THE SHORE AND MARSHES 233 



Range — Temperate North America; nests usually north of 

 Virginia, and winters from that state southward to the 

 West Indies. 



Season — Summer resident, or visitor from May to October; 

 permanent in the South. 



Even if you have never seen this shy hermit of large 

 swamps and marshy meadows you must know him by his 

 remarkable "barbaric yawp." Not a muscle does this 

 brown and blackish and buff freckled fellow move as he 

 stands waiting for prey to come within striking distance of 

 what appears to be a dead stump. On closer examination 

 he looks as if he might be carved out of tortoise shell. 

 Sometimes he stands with his head drawn in until it rests 

 on his back; or, he may hold his head erect and pointed up- 

 ward when he looks like a sharp snag. While he medi- 

 tates pleasantly on the flavor of a coming dinner, he sud- 

 denly snaps and gulps, filling his lungs with air, then loudly 

 bellows forth the most unmusical bird cry you are ever 

 likely to hear. You may recognize it across the marsh half 

 a mile away or more. A nauseated child would go through 

 no more convulsive gestures than this happy hermit makes 

 every time he lifts up his voice to call, pump-er-lunh, 

 pump-er-lunk, pump-er-lunh. Still another noise has 

 earned him one of his many popular names, the stake 

 driver, because it sounds like a stick being driven into the 

 mud. 



A booming bittern will stand hoiu: after hour, almost 

 every day in summer, year after year, on a dark, decaying 

 pile of an old dock or at the edge of the reeds. Relying on 

 his protective coloring and poses for concealment in so ex- 

 posed a place, he profits by his fearlessness in broad day- 



