BITTERN. 
37 
where it forms a nest on some tump, by collecting- a quantity of sedge 
or other coarse plants tog-ether. It lays four or five egg-s 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 
Bitfern 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 
