THE BITTERN 



(Botaurus stellaris) 



BEFORE drainage and cultivation had driven away so many of the marsh- 

 haunting birds, the boom of the bittern was a familiar sound to the dwellers 



in the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, and this handsome bird 

 regularly nested not only in those districts, but in the Norfolk Broads, as well as in 

 many other counties possessing situations suitable to its habits. Indeed nests were 

 taken now and then up to the middle of last century, and even later ; but at the 

 present day the bittern is nothing more than a casual visitor to the British Islands, 

 in fact, so rare have its visits become, that they are generally considered worthy of 

 special record. 



A near relative of the heron, the bittern does not expose itself in the open after 

 the fashion of that species, but skulks amid the shelter of reeds and flags, where its 

 presence is made known only by the ordinary raven-like croak, or the loud booming 

 of the male in the breeding-season. From this habit the bittern derives its German 

 name of rohrdommel ; and with such surroundings its mottled plumage of light and 

 dark brown mingled with black is designed to harmonise, as is also in all prob- 

 ability the greenish hue of its long, spear-like beak, so admirably adapted to seize 

 and hold the unwary fish or frog that may come within striking distance. 



As this resemblance between the plumage of the bittern and its inanimate 

 surroundings is sufficiently apparent from the accompanying Plate, it will be 

 unnecessary to attempt any description of its colouring. It is, however, important 

 to mention that the bird appears to be in the habit of increasing the protective 

 power of its mottled livery, by assuming, probably under the influence of alarm, a 

 statuesque position amid the reeds, with the body held as erect as possible, the neck 

 stretched to its fullest extent, and the head and beak pointing skywards. In this 

 posture it is stated, by those who have had the good fortune to see it, to be almost 

 invisible amid the upright brown stems of reeds and bulrushes. 



The range of the bittern is very extensive, including the whole of temperate 

 Europe, northern Africa, and the greater portion of Asia lying between the 

 Himalaya and the Arctic Circle, as well as north-western India and Burma. In 

 South Africa its place is taken by another species, a third kind inhabits Australia, 

 New Caledonia, and New Zealand, while a fourth is a native of North and Central 

 America, and a fifth is indigenous to tropical South America. The distribution 

 of the group is thus almost cosmopolitan, if we except most of the tropical zone of 

 the Old World ; and all the five species are closely related. 



In Europe at the present day bitterns are still common in Spain, Holland, 



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