172 
"THE BIRD OF DESOLATION." 
crag, occasionally uttering a low, hoarse croak, which the dwellers by 
the sea regard as an omen of storm and evil. 
We do not know why this mention of the cormorant should suggest 
to us thoughts of the bittern, except it be that the booming voice of 
the latter, like the croak of the former, was at one time associated 
with superstitious fears. Thus Bishop Hall, in his " Characters of 
Virtues and Vices," speaking of the credulous man, remarks that "if 
a bittern fly over his head by night, he makes his will." 
The bittern, the bird of desolation of Scripture, is always associated 
with the waste places of the earth and the shattered ruins of human 
glory. Her home is in the rushy and reedy growth of the wilderness, 
and by the pools of water. Mudie gives a very graphic description 
of her customary haunt. " Keep," he says, " if you would track her to 
her home, the line of the rushes, for a thick tuft of those sturdy 
plants provides a safe foot-fall in any bog. You may start on j'^our 
way the suspicious lapwing or the lively wagtail ; and should thei-e be 
a breadth of clear water, you will see, perhaps, the wild duck, with 
her young brood, sailing statelily out from the depths of the rustling 
reeds ; or, should the pool be smaller, the brown and yellow snipe 
gliding through the herbage on the bank with a stealthy movement. 
" In the tuft of tall and close herbage, not very far from the 
firm ground, but yet so placed near or in the water that you cannot 
very easily reach it, the bittern may be close at the time, wakeful, 
noting you well, and holding herself prepared to ' keep her castle ; ' 
but you cannot raise her by shouting, or even by throwing stones, 
the last of which is treason against Nature in a place solely under 
Nature's dominion. Wait till the sun is down, and the last glimmer 
of the twilight has got westward of the zenith, and then return 
to the place where you expected to find the bird. 
"The reeds begin to rustle with the little winds, in which the 
day settles accounts with the night ; but there is a shorter and a 
sharper rustle, accompanied by the brush of rather a poweiful 
wincf. You look round the dim horizon, but there is no bird : 
another rustle of the wing, and another, still weaker and weaker, 
