154 
BELLOWING, OR BOOxMING. 
it often makes a desperate resistance, against both dog and 
man, sometimes laying upon its back and figli ting with both 
claws and bill, the former of which has been known to 
inflict a wound on the leg through the boot. 
It is during the months of February and March chiefly 
that the males make that curious lowing, or bellowing sound, 
Avhich is called the booming of the Bittern. Some suppose 
this to be the call to the females, and say it is produced by 
a loose membrane, situated in the throat, which is capable 
of great extension, and can be filled with air and exploded 
at pleasure. The noise was formerly believed to be made 
while the bird plunged its bill into the mud: hence 
Thomson writes : — 
So that scarce 
The Bittern knows his timo^ with bill engulfed, 
To shake the sounding marsh. 
In Scripture this was the bird of desolation ; thus Isaiah, 
prophesying the destruction of Babylon, says : — ^ The Lord 
will make it a possession for the Bittern, and pools of 
water.' Well may Dilnot Sladden, in his poem ^ The Spirit 
of Beauty,' say : — 
Where novr 
Is Babylon the gorgeous ? Fallen for ever 
In ruin and confusion ; there remains 
The mouldering temple, and the falling tower, 
In mighty heaps, where scarce the Arab dares 
To pitch his habitation ; where the beasts 
Have found their dens, and by the water pools 
The Bittern makes his dweUing ; and the words 
Which Heaven spake by the prophet are fulfilled, 
E'en to the letter. 
Mudie has given us a graphic picture of the home of the 
Bittern, which, although long, we are tempted to quote :— 
A calm clear day in the wilderness. ^ * * The dry height 
is silent, save the chirp of the grasshopper, or the hum of some stray 
bee which the heat of the day has tempted out, to see if there be 
any honeyed blooms among the heath ; by-and-by you hear the 
warning whistle of the Plover, sounded perhaps within a few yards 
of your feet, but so singularly inward a ventriloque, that you fancy it 
comes from miles off ; the Lapwing soon comes at the call, playing 
and wailing around your head, and quits you not till you are so near 
the marshy expanse that your footing is heavy, and the ground 
quakes and vibrates under your feet. That is not much to be 
