57 
I 
STORKS, HERONS, AND PELICAN 
TRIBE 
In Hungary large numbers of herons and egrets breed together in the marshes, egrets 
and night-herons breeding together with the common and purple herons. Landbeck, an 
enthusiastic ornithologist, writes of such heronries ; “The clamour in these breeding-places is 
so tremendous and singular in its character as almost to defy description ; it must be heard 
before a person can form any idea of what it is like. At a distance these hideous noises 
blend with a confused roar, so as in some way to resemble the hubbub caused by a party 
of drunken Hungarian peas- 
ants ; and it is only on a 
nearer approach the separate 
notes of the two species, the 
common and the night-heron, 
can be distinguished — namely, 
‘craik’ and ‘quack,’ to which 
the notes of the young, “zek- 
zek-zek,’ ... in different 
keys, serve as an accompani- 
ment.” 
The tops of the highest 
trees are usually occupied by 
the nests of the common 
heron. A little lower down 
we find the egret ; and on the 
lowest branches the heron. 
The Bitterns 
These are birds of a re- 
markable type of coloration, 
adapted to aid their skulking 
habits. Thecoloration partakes 
so completely of the nature of 
the undergrowth among which 
they dwell, that, aided by 
certain peculiar habits de- 
scribed below, they succeed in 
harmonising so perfectly with 
their surroundings as to render 
themselves invisible to their 
enemies. 
The best-known species 
in Britain is the COMxViON BIT- 
TERN, though this epithet no 
longer applicable, for at the 
present time it is but an occa- 
sional visitant there. Once 
it was plentiful enough, as the frequent references both in prose and poetry bear witness. 
These references have been inspired mainly by its very peculiar note, made apparently only 
during the breeding-season. This sound is variously described as “ booming,” “ bellowing,” and 
“ bumping,” and many are the theories which have been invented to account for its origin. 
Thomson, in “The Seasons,” says that it is made whilst the beak is thrust into the mud: — 
INDIAN CATTLE-EGRET 
This is a species of buff'‘backed heron^ and earns its name from its habit of ho'verlng round 
cattle for the sake of picking ojf the ticks by ^hich they are infested 
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf’d 
'I’o shake the sounding marsh. 
Chaucer, that it is caused whilst it is immersed under water; and Dryden represents it as 
