66 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



ing in the fens. It does not sound loud near at hand, 

 and it is remarkable that it should be heard so far. 

 Perhaps it is pitched on a favorable key. Is it not a 

 call to its mate ? Methinks that in the resemblance of 

 this note to rural sounds, to sounds made by farmers, 

 the protection, the security, of the bird is designed. 



July 18, 1852. Again under weigh, we scare up the 

 great bittern amid the pontederia, and, rowing to where 

 he alights, come within three feet of him and scare 

 him up again. He flies sluggishly away, plowing the air 

 with the coulter of his breast-bone, and alighting ever 

 higher up the stream. We scare him up many times in 

 the course of an hour. 



Aug. 13, 1852. Saw the head and neck of a great 

 bittern projecting above the meadow-grass, exactly like 

 the point of a stump, only I knew there could be no 

 stump there. 



Aug. 31, 1852. The pigeon woodpecker darts across 

 the valley ; a catbird mews in the alders ; a great bit- 

 tern flies sluggishly away from his pine tree perch on 

 Tupelo Cliff, digging his way through the air. These 

 and crows at long intervals are all the birds seen or 

 heard. 



There goes a great bittern plodding home over the 

 meadows at evening, to his perch on some tree by the 

 shore. The rain has washed the leaves clean where 

 he perches. There stands another in the meadow just 

 like a stake, or the point of a stump or root. Its secur- 

 ity was consulted both in its form and color. The latter 

 is a sober brown, pale on the breast, as the less exposed 



