Crown and nape black; general colour buff, irregularly barred above and streaked below with black; feathers of the neck long, and forming a ruff; bill greenish yellow; legs and feet green. Length, thirty inches.
The bittern, formerly a common bird, is hardly entitled to a place in this book, since it has long been extirpated as a breeding species. It is, however, a noteworthy fact that, whereas other species that have been driven out, such as the great bustard, spoonbill, avocet, black tern, and several more, appear now as only rare occasional visitors in our country, the bittern comes back to us annually, as if ever seeking to recover its lost footing in our island. And that he would recover it, and breed again in suitable places as in former times, is not to be doubted, if only the human inhabitants would allow it; but, unhappily, this bird, like the ruff, hoopoe, and kingfisher, when stuffed and in a glass case, is looked upon as an attractive ornament by persons of a low order of intelligence and vulgar tastes.
PLATE IX. BITTERN. ⅕ NAT. SIZE.
The bittern is a bird of singular appearance. On the wing he resembles the heron, but it is a rare thing to see him abroad in the daytime. He is strictly nocturnal in habits, and passes the daylight hours concealed in thick reed-beds in extensive marshes. His buff and yellow and chestnut colour, mottled and barred and pencilled with black and brown, gives him a strange tigrine or cat-like appearance; it is a colouring well suited to his surroundings, where yellow and brown dead vegetation is mixed with the green, and the stems and loose leaves of the reeds throw numberless spots and bars of shade beneath. Secure in its imitative colouring, the bittern remains motionless in its place until almost trodden upon. Its active life begins in the evening, when it leaves its hiding-place to prey on fishes, eels, frogs, voles, small birds, and insects, and every living thing it finds and is able to conquer with a blow of its sharp, powerful bill.
When flying he utters a harsh, powerful scream, and he has, besides, a strange vocal performance, called ‘booming’—a sound that resembles the bellowing of a bull. Formerly, when the bittern was a common bird in England, this extraordinary evening performance was the subject of some superstitious notions, and it was commonly believed that, to produce so great a volume of sound, the bird, when screaming, thrust its beak and head into the water. Thus, in Thomson’s ‘Seasons’ we read:—
The bittern knows his time, with, bill submerged,
To shake the sounding marsh.
In March or April the nest is made on the ground, among the thick reeds, and is formed of weeds, sticks, and rushes. The eggs are four in number, of an olive-brown colour, sometimes with a greenish shade.