The heronry is a most interesting place to visit when the young birds are nearly old enough to fly, and are most hungry and vociferous, and stand erect on the nests or neighbouring branches, looking very strange and tall and conspicuous on the tree-tops. The nests are of various sizes, and have a very disordered appearance, some of them looking like huge bundles of sticks and weed-stalks flung anyhow into the trees. At this period the parent birds are extremely active, and if the colony be a large one, they are seen arriving singly, or in twos and threes, at intervals of a few minutes throughout the day. Each time a great blue bird with well-filled gullet is seen sweeping downwards the young birds in all the nests are thrown into a great state of excitement, and greet the food-bearer with a storm of extraordinary sounds. The cries are powerful and harsh, but vary greatly, and resemble grunts and squeals and prolonged screams, mingled with chatterings and strange quacking or barking notes. When the parent bird has settled on its own nest, and fed its young, the sounds die away; but when several birds arrive in quick succession the vocal tempest rages continuously among the trees, for every young bird appears to regard any old bird on arrival as its own parent bringing food to satisfy its raging hunger. The cry of the adult is powerful and harsh, and not unlike the harsh alarm-cry of the peacock. Common Bittern. Botaurus stellaris. 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. [Illustration: _PLATE IX._ BITTERN. ⅕ nat. size.]