"Bittern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... right, it was the butterbump, as the fen people called the great brown bittern, which passed its days in the thickest parts of the bog, and during the darkness rose on high, to circle round and over the unfortunate frogs that were to form its supper, and utter its ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... astringent, these containing much tannin; also for its fruit, which is supplied with malic and citric acids, pectin, and albumen. Blackberries go often by the name of "bumblekites," from "bumble," the cry of the bittern, and kyte, a Scotch word for belly; the name bumblekite being applied, says Dr. Prior, "from the rumbling and bumbling caused in the bellies of children who eat the fruit too greedily." "Rubus" is from ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... BOOM, v., applied as bumble by Chaucer, and bump by Dryden, to the noise of the bittern, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... ne'er Beheld by mortal man. Remote it stood Within the precincts of a pathless wood To Dian sacred. Round its entrance grew A tangled copse, and one gigantic yew Towered at its mouth. The river ran near by, And on its bank was heard the bittern's cry, For May ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... the birds which now constitute feathered game the heron, the crane, the crow, the swan, the stork, the cormorant, and the bittern. These supplied the best tables, especially the first three, which were looked upon as exquisite food, fit even for royalty, and were reckoned as thorough French delicacies. There were at that time heronries, as at a later period there were pheasantries. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... marshes boometh the bittern, Nicker the Soulless sits with his ghittern; Sits inconsolable, friendless and foeless, Bewailing ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... polite, and Dot thought it the strangest possible creature, because it was really very kind in helping to save the Kangaroo's life, and yet it seemed to delight in spoiling its kind-heartedness by its rudeness. Afterwards the Kangaroo told her that the little Bittern is a really tender-hearted fellow, but he has an idea that kindness in rather small creatures provokes the contempt of the big ones. As he always wants to be thought a bigger bird than he is, he pretends to be hard-hearted by being rough; consequently, nearly all the Bush ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... will occasionally circle aloft for a considerable time. The snipe is found very early on the Forest, so much so that I have known in the month of July six killed in a day. The jack snipe particularly abounds about 'the Dam Pool.' The bittern has been twice shot near the same spot within the last twenty years. The seagull skims over occasionally from the Severn side. The water-ousel is frequently met with on the Forest brooks. The cross-bill comes sometimes into the neighbourhood. The turtle-dove particularly ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... Cheele went for one of his frequent rambles through his woodland property. He had a stuffed bittern in his study, and knew the names of quite a number of wild flowers, so his aunt had possibly some justification in describing him as a great naturalist. At any rate, he was a great walker. It was his custom to take mental notes of everything he saw during his walks, ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... below them, rises the melancholy and discordant clamour of our performance. Quickly, the voices of the night awake in earnest protest against it. Roosting shags and waterfowl fly screaming away. In the swamp a bittern booms; and strange wailing cries come from the depths of the bush. On the farm dogs bark energetically, cattle bellow, horses neigh, sheep bleat, pigs grunt, ducks quack, and turkeys gobble. Frightful is the din that goes echoing ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate. Every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: it shall never be inhabited, neither dwelt in from generation to generation; but wild beasts of the deserts shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... reach thine ear, Armor's clang, or war steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come, At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here's no war steed's neigh and champing, Shouting clans or ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... blasted, bare, and cleft. The veil of cloud was lifted, and below Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow Was darkened by the forest's shade, Or glistened in the white cascade; Where upward, in the mellow blush of day, The noisy bittern wheeled ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Kampf dir weigerte, nun dich so wohl lstet 60 Handgemeiner Schlacht! Es entscheide das Treffen, Wer heute sich drfe der Harnische rhmen Oder der Brnnen beider walten!" Da sprengten zuerst mit den Speeren sie an In scharfen Schauern; dem wehrten die Schilde. 65 Dann schritten zusammen sie (zum bittern Schwertkampf),[11] Hieben harmlich die hellen Schilde, Bis leicht ihnen wurde das Lindenholz, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... the nest, if alarmed by an intruder, they will frequently, trusting to their protective dress of streaky brown, freeze into most unbird-like attitudes, drawing the feathers close to the body and stretching the neck stiffly upward,—almost bittern-like. Undoubtedly other interesting habits which these strangely picturesque birds may possess are still awaiting discovery by some enthusiastic observer with a pair of opera-glasses and a stock of that ever ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... their tufted seeds Voyaging the Autumn breeze Like as fairy argosies: Time of quicker flash of wings, And of clearer twitterings In the grove, or deeper shade Of the tangled everglade,— Where the spotted water-snake Coils him in the sunniest brake; And the bittern, as in fright, Darts, in sudden, slanting flight, Southward, while the startled crane Films his ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... to suit the convenience of the dingy denizens of Manchester, or the purse-proud merchants of Liverpool?" Similar arguments were urged not more than a century ago against the formation of new turnpike roads. The bittern, it was said, would be driven from his pool, the fox from his earth, the wild fowl would be frightened away from the marshes, and many a fine haunch of venison would be sent to London markets without the proper ceremonies of turning off and running down the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne |
