. Nests and eggs of North American birds. Birds; Birds. 112 NESTS AND EGGS OF to 58° or 60°, and breeds chiefly from the middle districts northward, wintering thence southward. The name last mentioned is occasioned by its hoarse, gurgling cry of alarm. The bird is often spoken of by the poets as the "booming ; In the breeding season it has a "love note" that resembles the stroke of a mallet on a stake, chunk-a-hink-chunk, guank-chunk-a-lunk-clmnk. Few ornithologists have actu- ally seen a Bittern "; One of the best accounts ever written of the Bittern
. Nests and eggs of North American birds. Birds; Birds. 112 NESTS AND EGGS OF to 58° or 60°, and breeds chiefly from the middle districts northward, wintering thence southward. The name last mentioned is occasioned by its hoarse, gurgling cry of alarm. The bird is often spoken of by the poets as the "booming ; In the breeding season it has a "love note" that resembles the stroke of a mallet on a stake, chunk-a-hink-chunk, guank-chunk-a-lunk-clmnk. Few ornithologists have actu- ally seen a Bittern "; One of the best accounts ever written of the Bittern's "pumping" is that by Prank H. Nutter, a civil engineer who observed the performance in a marsh in Minnesota. It appears in the "Oologist's Exchange" for April, 1888 (Vol. I, No. 4), which was among the prize essays on bird life, and the writer was ap- pointed judge.','; It has been quoted frequently since its first appearance. So many new and original observations were advanced by Mr. Nutter that I was compelled to award him the prize without previously knowing from whom the MS. came. This is one of the observations: "By the way, did you ever see a Bittern while engaged in its serenade? It is a ludicrous performance. One favored me with it within easy range of my telescope. After standing in a meditative position for some time it would slowly raise its head and stretch up its neck till its bill pointed nearly straight upwards, when it commenced by several times opening and shutting its big beak with a snap that was plainly heard, though five or six hundred feet distant; it then uttered the characteristic notes from which it takes its common name of 'Stake Driver' or 'Thunder Pumper'; and truly it seems much like pumping, for each syl- lable seems to originate deep in the interior of the bird and to be ejected only with the greatest muscular exertion, pufllng out its feathers and working its long neck up and down, as if choking to death. After a sho
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Keywords: ., bookauthordavi, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds
