
BITTERNS. 175 
the sky." “When the bittern booms and bleats overhead 
one certainly feels as if the earth were shaking.” Gold- 
smith’s description of the bittern’s voice is one of his most 
pleasing passages. Many of the poets speak of the bird’s 
strange voice, and even in the time of Thompson (Thomp- 
son of the Seasons) it was thought that the bill was thrust 
into the mud in making it. Chaucer speaks as follows in 
The Wife of Bath’s Tale : 
“ And as a bitore bumbleth in the mire, 
She laid hire mouth into the water doun, 
Bewray me not, thou water, with thy soun’, 
Quod she, ‘ to the I tell it, and no mo 
Min husbond hath long asses eres tw 

Another notion was that the bill was put inside a reed to 
increase the sound; the truth is, of course, that the bird 
uses no means to produce its bellow but its own organs of 
voice. Our own bittern has no such roar, but, as its name 
in most parts of the country denotes, makes a noise yery 
much like driving a stake with an axe. It has also a hollow 
croak at the moment of alarm. 
These remarks apply to the American and European spe- 
cies; the geographical range of the former is from latitude 
60° north, to Central America and the West Indies, having 
never been found, I believe, south of latitude 10° north. It 
is of rare occurrence west of the Rocky Mountains, though 
hot uncommon in other parts of the United States. Many 
specimens of this bird have been shot in the British Isles, 
particularly in Ireland. The first recorded capture was in 
Devonshire, England, in October, 1804; the prize was by 
some regarded as a new species. All such specimens have 
been killed in the fall, so that there can be no doubt that 
they were blown out to sea in their autumnal migration. ; 
: The European species has a wider range. Selby says it 
18 confined to Europe, but such is not the case; it occurs, 
though rarely, in Norway, Russia and Siberia, up to latitude 
65° north, and is found breeding at the Cape of Good Hope, 
 inlatitude 35° south. In the other direction it extends from 
