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AEDEID^. 
its eyes, or one of them at least, fixed on the orb of day; and 
frequently spread out its wings in the manner of cormorants and 
vultures to enjoy the heat, or perhaps the gentle breeze/^ (Orn. 
Biog. vol. iv. p. 296.) He again observes — ^^That they are 
extremely timid I well know ; for, on several occasions, when I 
have suddenly come upon them, they have stood still from mere 
terror, until I have knocked them down with an oar or a stick,” 
(p. 297.) 
We find the bittern associated in the sacred volume with the 
desolation both of Babylon and Nineveh.* In reference to the 
former great city is the denunciation, — I will also make it a 
possession for the bittern, and pools of water.” (Isaiah xiv. 23.) 
See also Isaiah xxxiv. 11. 
As the species disappears before the improvement of the coun- 
try by man, we can very rarely now, even in Ireland, hear 
“ At evening, o’er the swampy plain. 
The bittern’s boom come far.” — Southey. 
Yet it was one of the very few birds which Goldsmith, in his de- 
lightful ■ ^ Animated Nature,” descanted on from personal obser- 
vation in his native country. He remarks that it is not from its 
voracious appetite, but its hollow boom, that the bittern is held 
in such detestation by the vulgar. I remember, in the place 
where I was a boy, with what terror the bird^s note affected the 
whole village ; they considered it as the presage of some sad 
event ; and generally found, or made one to succeed it. I do not 
speak ludicrously ; but if any person in the neighbourhood died, 
they supposed it could not be otherwise, for the night-raven had 
foretold it ; but if nobody happened to die, the death of a cow or 
a sheep gave completion to the prophecy.”! 
The following commencement of the same author^s description 
* Zephaniah ii. 14, 
t The uneducated in various couutries have had superstitions, or at least prognos- 
tications, in connexion with the note of the bittern ; but I shall mention only one, 
not selected on account of its elegance, but from its having, so far as I am aware, 
appeared only in the page of a journal. As stated (by Mr. J. Hawley) in the 
Zoologist for Feb. 1849 ; — “ I have heard some old people recite a doggrel rhyme 
