In a similar manner the tiger, though so large an animal, can lie in a very small covert of reeds without being detected, its striped fur corresponding with the reeds themselves and the shadows thrown by them; and the leopard can remain hidden among the boughs of a tree, its spotted coat harmonizing with the broken light and shade of the foliage.
THE BITTERN.
The following powerful description of the Bittern's home is given by Mudie: "It is a bird of rude nature, where the land knows no character save that which the untrained, working of the elements impresses upon it; so that when any locality is in the course of being won to usefulness, the bittern is the first to depart, and when any one is abandoned, it is the last to return. 'The bittern shall dwell there' is the final curse, and implies that the place is to become uninhabited and uninhabitable. It hears not the whistle of the ploughman, nor the sound of the mattock; and the tinkle of the sheep-bell, or the lowing of the ox (although the latter bears so much resemblance to its own hollow and dismal voice, that it has given foundation to the name), is a signal for it to be gone.
"Extensive and dingy pools—if moderately upland, so much the better—which lie in the hollows, catching, like so many traps, the lighter and more fertile mould which the rains wash and the winds blow from the naked heights around, and converting it into harsh and dingy vegetation, and the pasture of those loathsome things which wriggle in the ooze, or crawl and swim in the putrid and mantling waters, are the habitation of the bittern.
"Places which scatter blight and mildew over every herb which is more delicate than a sedge, a carex, or a rush, and consume every wooded plant that is taller than the sapless and tasteless cranberry or the weeping upland willow; which shed murrain over the quadrupeds, chills which eat the flesh off their bones, and which, if man ventures there, consume him by putrid fever in the hot and dry season, and shake him to pieces with ague when the weather is cold and humid.
"Places from which the heath and the lichen stand aloof, and where even the raven, lover of disease, and battener upon all that expires miserably and exhausted, comes rarely and with more than wonted caution, lest that death which he comes to seal and riot upon in others should unawares come upon himself. The raven loves carrion on the dry and unpoisoning moor, scents it from afar, and hastens to it upon his best and boldest wing; but 'the reek o' the rotten fen' is loathsome to the sense of even the raven, and it is hunger's last pinch ere he come nigh to the chosen habitation, the only loved abode, of the bittern."
Secure in its retreat, the Bittern keeps its place even if a sportsman should pass by the spot on which it crouches. It will not be tempted to leave its retreat by noise, or even by stone throwing, for it knows instinctively that the quaking bogland which it selects as its home is unsafe for the step of man.
The very cry of the Bittern adds to this atmosphere of desolation. By day the bird is silent, but after the sun has gone down it utters its strange wild cry, a sound which exactly suits the localities in which it loves to make its habitation. During part of the year it only emits a sharp, harsh cry as it rises on the wing, but during the breeding season it utters the cry by which it summons its mate, one of the strangest love-calls that can be imagined. It is something between the neighing of a horse, the bellow of a bull, and a shriek of savage laughter. It is very loud and deep, so that it seems to shake the loose and marshy ground. There was formerly an idea that, when the Bittern uttered this booming cry, it thrust its bill into the soft ground, and so caused it to shake. In reality, the cry is uttered on the wing, the bird wheeling in a spiral flight, and modulating its voice in accordance with the curves which it describes in the air. This strange sound is only uttered by the male bird.