


BITTERNS. 171 
bittern. He is a bird of the confines, beyond which we can 
imagine nothing but utter ruin.” 
This picture is, I think, somewhat overdrawn; moreover, 
no naturalist ought to speak of the waste places of Nature 
in that disapproving way. We might pardon a mere col- 
lector for writing so of bogs and wilds, he knows no better; 
to him, a natural history store, where he may buy his eggs, 
his shells, his bird-skins, or his sea-mosses, is preferable to 
the swamps he must struggle through, the thickets he must 
thread, the plains he must traverse, and the sandy or muddy 
sea-beaches he must frequent if he would be a student of 
Nature. Dry feet, untired limbs, clothes and flesh untorn 
by briar and bramble, are not for the naturalist at all hours, 
nor should he complain ; a new plant, a rare mollusk, a bird 
till now unseen, an egg till now unknown, repay such trials 
as these; and, if he find no such prize, his tramp, like vir- 
tue, is its own reward. That there is something about the 
fowl, of which Mudie thus speaks, that appeals strongly to 
the imagination is not to be denied; but the bird is, nev- 
ertheless, a reputable bird, although he is the one which 
ignorant peasants in the old countries know by the name of 
"night raven," believing that disaster or death must needs 
follow when they have heard his voice booming over the fens 
on à warm cloudy night, as they staggered their drunken 
Way home from the ale-house. Terrible as the voice sounds 
to their dull senses, it is sweetest music to the bittern's mate, 
sitting among the grasses below him, or with him circling 
the sky just under the cloud. 
On this side of the Atlantic we have no superstitious fear 
of the fowl, and do not think the swamps accursed by his 
Presence. He is a lovely bird in unprejudiced, discrimi- 
nating eyes; he has no gaudy colors, but his blacks, his 
browns and yellows, of many shades, all of them pleasing, 
are so blended as to produce a beautiful, harmonious effect. 
He loves waste places, for they furnish him safety and food ; 
Safety, because his enemy, man, is fond of a dry foot ; and 
