58 THE LIVING ANIMALS OL THE WORLD 
made by thrusting the bill into a reed. Mr. J. E. Harting is one of the few who have 
actually watched the bird during the production of the sound, and from him we gather 
that it is made by expelling the air from the throat whilst the head is held vertically upwards. 
The protective coloration and the peculiar habits associated therewith have only recently 
been recognised. These birds, when threatened, do not take flight, but immediately bring the 
body and the long neck and pointed head into one vertical line, and remain absolutely motion- 
less so long as the cause of alarm peisists. The peculiar coloration of the body harmonises 
so perfectly with the surrounding undergrowth, that, as just remarked, detection is well-nigh 
impossible. Although the pattern and tone of the coloration vary in the various species of 
bittern — which occur all over the world — this principle of protection obtains in all. 
The drainage of the fens is answerable for the extinction of the bittern in England. 
We would draw special attention to the great length of the feathers on the neck, which, when 
the bird is e.xcited, are extended on either side to form an enormous feather shield. This is 
admirably shown in the photograph below, which represents a bittern preparing to strike. It is a 
curious fact that, when extended, the hind part of the neck is protected only by a thin coat of 
down. When the excitement has passed, the elongated feathers fall again, and, curling round 
the unprotected area, give the bird the appearance of having a perfectly normally clothed neck. 
A wounded bittern will strike at either man or dog, and is extremely dangerous, owing to the 
sharpness of its dagger-like bill. If a dog advances on one not entirely disabled, the bird imme- 
diately turns itself upon its back, and fights with beak and claws, after the fashion of a wounded 
hawk or owl. Owing to the way in which the neck can be tucked up, by throwing it into a 
series of curves, and then suddenly extended, great danger attends the approach of the unwary. 
The bittern is by no means particular in its choice of food, small mammals, birds, lizards, 
frogs, fishes, and beetles being alike palatable. The writer remembers taking from the gullet 
and stomach of one of these birds no less than four water-voles, three of which had apparently 
been killed only just before it was shot, for the process of digestion had hardly begun. 
. On migration these birds appear to travel in flocks of considerable size, since Captain 
Kelham reports having seen as many as fifty together high up in the air, when between 
Alexandria and Cairo. Curiously enough, they flew like “a gaggle” of geese- — in the form of 
a V ; but every now and then he noticed they, for some reason or other, got into great confusion. 
At one time the flesh of the bittern was much esteemed as food for the table, being 
likened in taste and colour to the leveret, with some of the flavour of wild-fowl. Sir Thomas 
Browne, who flourished during the middle of the seventeenth century, says that young bitterns 
were considered better eating than 
young herons. 
In the fourteenth century it bred 
in considerable numbers in the fens of 
Cambridgeshire, and was so highly 
esteemed as a bird for the table that 
the taking of its eggs was forbidden. 
At a court-baron of the Bishop of Ely, 
according to Mr. J. E. Harting, held 
at Littleport in the eleventh year of 
the reign of Edward II., several people 
were fined for taking the eggs of 
the bittern and carrying them out of 
the fen, to the great destruction of the 
birds. Decreasing steadily in numbers, 
the bittern continued to breed in 
Britain till the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, one of the last nests 
being taken in Norfolk in 1868. 
Fhoto by J. L. Bonhote^ Esq, 
COMMON BITTERN 
Preparing to attack {side t'ietv) 
