“---- ---- Now, like the wearied stag, That stands at bay, the Hern provokes their rage; Close by his languid wing in downy plumes Covers his fatal beak, and cautious hides The well-dissembled fraud. The falcon darts Like lightning from above, and in her breast Receives the latent death: down plumb she falls, Bounding from earth, and with her trickling gore Defiles her gaudy plumage. See, alas! The falconer in despair, his favourite bird Dead at his feet: as of his dearest friend, He weeps her fate; he meditates revenge, He storms, he foams, he gives a loose to rage; Nor wants he long the means; the Hern fatigued, Borne down by numbers, yields, and prone on earth He drops; his cruel foes wheeling around Insult at will.” SOMERVILLE. It is extremely dangerous to go near a wounded Heron, and the utmost caution is necessary in doing so. Though apparently almost dead, he will yet dart at his enemy’s face, and sometimes inflict a most severe wound. [Illustration: THE BITTERN, (_Botaurus stellaris_,)] IS not quite so large as the common heron; its head is small, narrow, and compressed at the sides. The crown is black, the throat and sides of the neck red, with narrow black lines, and the back of a pale red, mixed with yellow. The claws are long and slender, the inside of the middle one being serrated, the better to enable it to hold its prey. The bill is about four inches in length. The most remarkable character in this bird is the hollow and yet loud rumbling of his voice; his bellowing is heard at the distance of a mile, at the time of sunset, and it is hardly possible to conceive at first how such a body of sound, resembling the lowing of an ox, can be produced by a bird comparatively so small. The booming noise was formerly believed to be made while the bird plunged its bill into the mud; hence Thomson: “---- So that scarce The Bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf’d To shake the sounding marsh.” And Southey also describes the peculiar noise of this bird in his poem of Thalaba: “And when at evening, o’er the swampy plain, The Bittern’s boom came far, Distinct in darkness seen-- Above the low horizon’s lingering light, Rose the near ruins of old Babylon.”