214 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
reptiles, shell fish, and almost anything else of an 
animal character that it can seize. When wounded, 
it will use its bayonet-like bill with great courage 
and effect. Its plumage is chiefly grey, with paler 
grey beneath ; the long crest or plume is bluish- 
black. 
BITTERN. 
{Botaurus stellar Is.^ 
Butterbump or Bootherboomp, Bull-of-the- 
Mire, Mire Drum. — The voice of the Bittern was 
its most conspicuous feature in days when it was 
still common in England, as its strange local names 
pretty clearly show. It is a skulking bird, and its 
shape and plumage enable it to hide in a remark- 
ably perfect manner among the long dead reeds of 
the marshes which it frequents. The drainage of 
marshes in all parts of the country has destroyed 
its former strongholds, and now, though Bitterns 
appear in England at the breeding season almost 
every year, they are generally shot, and seldom or 
never find sufficient freedom from disturbance to 
make nesting possible. The Bittern, in fact, is no 
longer to be reckoned among the species breeding 
in Britain, though it is a fairly frequent visitor. It 
is rather more than half as large as the Heron, and 
has a long neck and legs ; the plumage is warm 
