NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 46·76.
April 13.
Birds.
About this time, according to Dr. Forster, whose observations on the migrations and habits of birds, are familiar to most persons acquainted with the natural history of our island, the bittern, ardea stellata, begins to make a booming noise in marshy places at eventide. The deep and peculiar hollow tone of this bird in the breeding season, can hardly be mistaken for that of any other: it differs essentially from the note of the same bird when on the wing.
The bittern booms along the sounding marsh,
Mixt with the cries of heron and mallard harsh.
The bittern sits all day hid among the reeds and rushes with its head erect; at night it rises on the wing, and soars to a vast height in a spiral direction. Those who desire to see it must pursue a swampy route, through watery fens, quagmires, bogs, and marshes. The heron, ardea major, has now a nest, and is seen sailing about slowly in the air in search of its fishy prey, travelling from one fish pond to another, over a large tract of country. It is a bird of slow and heavy flight, though it floats on large and expansive wings.