The Bittern, the English provincial names of which are the Mire-drum, Bull of the Bog, &c., is so called for the bellowing or drumming noise or booming for which the bird is so famous. This deep note of the "hollow-sounding Bittern" is exerted on the ground at the breeding season, about February or March. As the day declines he leaves his haunt, and, rising spirally, soars to a great height in the twilight. Willughby says that it performs this last-mentioned feat in the autumn, "making a singular kind of noise, nothing like to lowing." Bewick says that it soars as above described when it changes its haunts. Ordinarily it flies heavily, like the Heron, uttering from time to time a resounding cry, not bellowing; and then Willughby, who well describes the bellowing noise of the breeding season, supposes it to be the Night Raven, at whose "deadly voice" the superstitious wayfarer of the night turned pale and trembled. "This, without doubt," writes Willughby, "is that bird our common people call the Night Raven, and have such a dread of, imagining its cry portends no less than their death or the death of some of their near relations; for it flies in the night, answers their description of being like a flagging collar, and hath such a kind of hooping cry as they talk of." Others, with some reason, consider the Qua Bird already mentioned (which utters a loud and most disagreeable noise when on the wing, conveying the idea of the agonies of a person attempting to vomit) to be the true Night Raven. The Bittern was well known to the ancients, and Aristotle mentions the fable of its origin from staves metamorphosed into birds. The long claw of the hind toe is much prized as a toothpick, and in the olden times it was thought to have the property of preserving the teeth. The Greater-billed Butcher Bird, from New Holland, has extraordinary powers of voice: it is trained for catching small birds, and it is said to imitate the notes of some other birds by way of decoying them to their destruction. The mere imitative sounds of Parrots are of little interest compared with the instances of instinct, apparently allied to reason, which are related of individuals. Of this tribe the distinguishing characteristics are a hooked bill, the upper mandible of which is moveable as well as the lower, and not in one piece with the skull, as in most other birds, but joined to the head by a strong membrane, with which the bird lifts it or lets it fall at pleasure. The bill is also round on the outside and hollow within, and has, in some degree, the capacity of a mouth, allowing the tongue, which is thick and fleshy, to play freely; while the sound, striking against the circular border of the lower mandible, reflects it like a palate: hence the animal does not utter a whistling sound, but a full articulation. The tongue, which modulates all sounds, is proportionally larger than in man.