BIRDS 227 



B I T T E E N. 



Botaurus stellaris (L.). 



Our first local references to the Bittern occur as early as 1610 

 in the Denton MS., and were therefore penned in days when 

 extensive morasses covered a large area of Lakeland, and quaking 

 bogs defied the most adventurous spirits to traverse on foot their 

 treacherous surface. Probably the Bittern was always more of 

 a winter visitant than a resident in our mosses, but that odd 

 pairs occasionally spent the breeding season with us can hardly 

 be questioned. Denton writes of ' Drumleyning/ in the north- 

 west of Cumberland : ' All Parton is in the parish of Thursby 

 saving that of Drumleyning, which is in the parish of Aikton, 

 and now doth service to the mannor of Aikton. It is called 

 corruptly Drumleyning, the right name thereof is the Myre- 

 Dromble-Heyning ; Wee call a bittern a Myre Dromble because 

 she haunteth myres, boggs, fens and carrs, and for that she hath 

 a thundering voice which we call rumbling. Heyning is the fry th 

 or freed spring of the place. A wood new cut for springing a 

 fryth and spring we call a Heyning of the word Heyned, which 

 signifies freed or spared or forborn.' 1 Of Drumbugh [= Drum- 

 burgh] the same writer observes : 'It is called Drumbugh of 

 that fenny mire or bog, then full of shrubs and haunted with 

 bitterns, which the people call myre drombles or mire drummles, 

 so as that Drumbogh signifies the bittern's fen.' 2 That the 

 name of Miredrum was colloquially attached to the Bittern in 

 Lakeland appears probable from its occurrence in a curious 

 sermon written by a well-known character, ' William de Worfitt,' 

 in the early part of the last century. 3 This homily was pro- 

 fessedly written in the vernacular tongue of the peasants resid- 

 ing in the neighbourhood of Morecambe Bay. As the parson 

 was i stalking hameward ' (so runs his ' tale ') ' across Blackwater- 

 mosses,' on a winter evening, with ' nought in view but dreary 

 dykes and dusky ling,' the ' awful silence ' of the waste ' was 

 sean brokken by a skirling hullet ; sure nivver did bullet, herren- 

 sue or miredrum mak sic a noise before.' ' Miredrum ' was not, 

 however, the only name applied to our Lakeland Bitterns. On 



1 Denton ms. p. 74. 2 lb. cit. p. 78. 



3 This sermon was kindly lent to me by Mr. Harry Arnold of Arnbarrow. 



