BITTERN. 



37 



where it forms a nest on some tump, by collecting a quantity of sedge 

 or other coarse plants together. It lays four or five eggs of a light 

 olive-green colour, inclining to cinereous. At this season the male 

 makes a singular bellowing noise. 



* Those who have walked in a summer's evening by the sedgy sides 

 of unfrequented rivers, must remember a variety of notes from different 

 water-fowl; the loud scream of the wild-goose, the croaking of the 

 mallard, the whining of the lapwing, and the tremulous neighing of the 

 jack-snipe. But of all these sounds, there is none so dismally hollow 

 as the booming of the Bittern. It is impossible for words to give those 

 who have not heard this evening call, an adequate idea of its solemnity. 

 It is like the interrupted bellowing of a bull ; but hollower and louder, 

 and is heard at a mile's distance, as if issuing from some formidable 

 being that resided at the bottom of the waters. This is the Bittern, 

 whose wind-pipe is fitted to produce the sound for which it is remark- 

 able ; the lower part of it dividing into the lungs being supplied with a 

 thin loose membrane that can be filled with a large body of air, and 

 exploded at pleasure. These bellowing explosions are chiefly heard 

 from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn ; and are the 

 usual calls during the pairing season. From the loudness and solem- 

 nity of the note, many have been led to suppose that the bird made 

 use of external instruments to produce it, and that so small a body 

 could never eject such a quantity of tone. The common people are 

 of opinion that it thrusts its bill into a reed that serves as a pipe for 

 swelling the note above its natural pitch ; while others imagine that the 

 Bittern puts its head under water, and then by blowing violently produces 

 its boomings. The fact is that the bird is sufficiently provided by 

 nature for this call ; and it is often heard where there are neither reeds 

 nor waters to assist its sonorous invitations. 



It hides in the sedges by day, and begins its call in the evening, 

 booming six or eight times, and then, discontinuing for ten or twenty 

 minutes, it renews the same sound. In Scotland the sound of the 

 Bittern is so very common that every child is familiar with it, though 

 the birds, from being shy, are not often seen. The poet Thomson seems 

 to have had a very erroneous notion of the manner in which the bird 

 produces the noise, when he says, 



" So that scarce 

 The bittern knows his time with bill engulpht 

 To shake the sounding marsh." 



On the contrary, I have repeatedly remarked that the Bittern 



