The Bittern and its general appearance—The bird of solitude—Difficulty of detecting the Bittern in its haunts—Mudie's description of the Bittern and its home—Nest of the Bittern—Scarcity of the bird at the present day—Food of the Bittern.

The Bittern belongs to the same family as the herons, the cranes, and the storks, and has many of the habits common to them all. It is, however, essentially a bird of solitude, hating the vicinity of man, and living in the most retired spots of marshy ground. As it sits among the reeds and rushes, though it is a large bird, it is scarcely visible even to a practised eye, its mottled plumage harmonizing with surrounding objects in such a way that the feathers of the bird can scarcely be distinguished from the sticks, stones, and grass tufts among which it sits. The ground colour of the plumage is dark buff, upon which are sprinkled mottlings and streaks of black, chestnut, grey, and brown. These mottled marks harmonize with the stones and tufts of withered grass, while the longitudinal dashes of buff and black on the neck and breast correspond with the sticks and reeds.

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 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[539]
[540] 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.

Like most of the long-legged wading birds, the Bittern is able to change its shape, and apparently to alter its size, in an astonishing manner. When it is walking over the ground, with head erect and eye glanced vigilantly at surrounding objects, it looks a large, bold, vigorous, and active bird. Next minute it will sink its head in its shoulders, so that the long beak seems to project from them, and the neck totally disappears, the feathers enveloping each other as perfectly and smoothly as if it never had had a neck. In this attitude it will stand for an hour at a time on one leg, with the other drawn close to its body, looking as dull, inert, and sluggish a bird as can well be imagined, and reduced apparently to one half of its former size. The Bittern is represented in one of its extraordinary attitudes on the plate which illustrates the cormorant.

The nest of the Bittern is placed on the ground, and near the water, though the bird always takes care to build it on an elevated spot which will not be flooded if the water should rise by reason of a severe rain. There is, however, but little reason for the Bittern to fear a flood, as at the time of year which is chosen for nest-building the floods are generally out, and the water higher than is likely to be the case for the rest of the year. The materials of the nest are found in marshes, and consist of leaves, reeds, and rushes.

As if to add to the general effect of its character, it is essentially a solitary bird, and in this characteristic entirely unlike its relatives the heron and the stork, which are peculiarly sociable, and love to gather themselves together in multitudes. But the Bittern is never found except alone, or at the most accompanied for a time by its mate and one or two young ones.

The localities in which it resides are sufficient evidence of the nature of its food. Frogs appear to be its favourite diet, but it also feeds on various fish, insects, molluscs, worms, and similar creatures. Dull and apathetic as it appears to be, it can display sufficient energy to capture tolerably large fish. Though the Bittern is only about two feet in total length, one of these birds was killed, in the stomach of which were found one perfect rudd eight inches in length and two in depth, together with the remains of another fish, of a full-grown frog, and of an aquatic insect. In another instance, a Bittern had contrived to swallow an eel as long as itself; while in many cases the remains of five or six full-grown frogs have been found in the interior of the bird, some just swallowed, and others in various stages of digestion.