Signification of the word Kippod—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—The strange cry of the bird—Superstitions connected with it—The. Night-raven—Nest of the Bittern-Scarcity of the bird at the present day—Food of the Bittern—The bird formerly brought to table.
IN the account of the hedgehog, page 80, it has been mentioned that the Hebrew word Kippod, which has been rendered in the Authorized Version as "Bittern," is in all probability the Syrian hedgehog, and that the Jewish Bible accepts that rendering without even al-fixing the mark of doubt to the word. As, however, some writers on the subject still adhere to the more familiar rendering, a short account will be given of the Bittern (Botauris stellaris).
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 practiced 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 color of the plumage is dark buff, upon which are sprinkled mottlings and streaks of black, chestnut, gray, 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 plowman, 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 mold 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, Test 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 bog land which it selects as its homo 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.
In every country inhabited by the Bittern we find that its deep sepulchral cry, booming out through the darkness, and heard at an immense distance, has been dreaded as the prophecy of some evil to come. In some parts both of England and Ireland it is known as the Night-raven, and under that title is held in the greatest fear. Allusion is made to this belief in the well-known passage from Middleton's “Witch":—
"At the Night-raven's dismal voice,
When others tremble, we rejoice;
And nimbly, nimbly, dance we still
To the echoes of a hollow hill.”
Under the same title Goldsmith writes of it in his “Animated Nature." " I remember, in the place where I was a boy, with what terror the bird's note affected the whole village,—they considered it as the presage of some sad event, and generally found or made one to succeed it. I do not speak ludicrously, but if any person in the neighborhood died, they supposed it could not be otherwise, for the night-raven had foretold it; but if nobody happened to die, the death of a cow or a sheep gave completion of the prophecy.”
In some parts of England the Bittern is known by the odd title of Butter-bump, a fact which was mentioned in the Zoologist many years ago:—
"There either be rain, or else summat waur,
When Butter-bump sings upo' Potterie car.”
About Fermanagh in Ireland, the Bittern is called Bog-bluiter, i.e. Bog-bleater, just as the snipe is termed the Heather-bluiter.
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 rice 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.
It will be seen from the foregoing account, that if the word Kippod be translated as "Bittern," the imagery connected with it holds good, and that no more powerful figure could be imagined for the desolation of Babylon than the prophecy, "I will make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water" (Isa. 14:2323I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 14:23)).
Though once plentiful in England, the Bittern is now very scarce, and there are few who have seen it in its native haunts. Formerly, when swamps and marshes abounded, the Bittern abounded in proportion, but drainage and cultivation and railways have fairly driven the Bittern out of the country, and in a few years it will be as completely extinct in England as the bustard or the eagle. Even the great marshes of Essex are being reclaimed and rendered unfit for the occupation of the bird; and, from the upper part of the house where this account is written, I can see with the aid of the telescope cornfields, and pasturelands, and barns, and ricks, and roads, diversifying the wide expanses which were once covered with brackish water at every flow of the tide, and at the ebb only left as quagmires through which the foot of man could not pass, and on which grew the rough and scanty herbage that flourishes under conditions that would kill almost any other vegetation.
No longer can the Bittern find a home there. Deep ditches intersect each other at short intervals, into which the moisture of the really rich soil is drained, and the water that once stood in stagnant pools which the Bittern loved is conducted into them, and discharged into the river at the ebb tide. By the abstraction of the moisture, the whole country has been lowered more than a foot, and, together with the stagnant pools, the Bittern has vanished never more to return. And here it may be mentioned that, although the Bittern inhabits none but desolate places, it only selects those which contain capabilities of cultivation. So, if the boom of the Bittern be heard, it may be accepted as deciding two things-firstly, that the ground is utterly deserted by man, and uncultivated; and secondly, that it ought to be occupied by him, and brought into cultivation.
At the present day, the Bittern is very plentiful in the swampy grounds which edge the Tigris, just as it used to be in the marshes which border the Thames. Should the time come when London will have passed away as completely as the great cities of old, and the banks of the Thames lie as desolate as those of the Tigris, the Bittern will reassume its sway, and its deep booming note will again be heard through the stillness of night.
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 favorite diet, but it also feeds on various fish, insects, mollusks, worms, and similar creatures. Dull and apathetic as it appears to be, it can display sufficient energy to capture tolerably largo 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 el digestion.
In former times the Bittern was used as food in England, and was considered one of the delicacies of a rich man's table. Partly on account of its scarcity, and partly on account of a popular prejudice, it is never eaten at the present day, and those, few specimens which are occasionally exposed for sale are merely purchased for the sake of their plumage. The flesh of the Bittern justifies the predilection which was formerly exhibited for it, as it is tender, well-flavored, and fat.