Annual report . the birds. It wouldstretch out its neck rather spasmodically, clicking its bill meanwhile three orfour times, and begin a sinuous or pumping motion with the neck and fore-part of the body, similar to the actions of a hawk or owl when disgorging abone pellet, but with the head and bill inclined upward at an angle of 45degrees or more. At each spasm or pumping motion the head and foreneckwould shoot forward some distance, and the wondrous notes would finallycome forth, resembling the syllables pmnp-er-lunk, or plum puddn, or,as one observer expressed it to me, ugh plum pudcfn, re
Annual report . the birds. It wouldstretch out its neck rather spasmodically, clicking its bill meanwhile three orfour times, and begin a sinuous or pumping motion with the neck and fore-part of the body, similar to the actions of a hawk or owl when disgorging abone pellet, but with the head and bill inclined upward at an angle of 45degrees or more. At each spasm or pumping motion the head and foreneckwould shoot forward some distance, and the wondrous notes would finallycome forth, resembling the syllables pmnp-er-lunk, or plum puddn, or,as one observer expressed it to me, ugh plum pudcfn, repeated several certainly acts as if suffering from acute nausea, and the notes are fairlydisgorged by the love-sick bittern. The sound has a hollow gurglingquality and has been compared to the sound of a wooden pump just as thewater is about to come forth, or to the inuffled bellow of a bull. At the dis-tance of half a mile it is reduced to one syllable and resembles the sound made BIRDS OF NEW YORK 249. American bittern brooding and defending young. Photo by E. G. Tabor) (From Bird-Lore. 250 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM while driving a stake in the mud; hence the popular names of Thunder-pumper, Stake-driver, Bog-bull etc. Persons who are unfamiliar with thebitterns note pass it by unnoticed, and I have often stood on piers andbridges where several people were congregated and bitterns were boomingnear by, but no one seemed to notice the strange note and when asked con-cerning it, they usually admitted they had never heard it before. When flushed from its retreat on the marsh or riverside, the bitternrises with a hoarse croak, its neck stretched out, its legs dangling, andseeming to shrink in mortal terror from the impending danger, until w^ellunder way, when it makes off with slow and measured stroke of its amplewings. Its nest is placed in a secluded part of the marsh among the grassand weeds and consists simply of a broad fiat pile of dead grass, flags andweed stalks. The
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectscience, bookyear1902
