The Natural History of Selborne

Vast rain in the night whih thunder.  A bittern was shot in shrub-wood.  A dog hunted it on the foot, & spring it in the covert.  On the same day Mr Yalden shot one in a coppice in the parish of Emshot: & about the same time on was killed in the parish of Greatham. Thses birds are very seldom seen in this district, & are probably driven from their watery haunts by the great floods, & obliged to betake themselves to the uplands.  The wings expanded measured just four feet: the tail-feathers shafts & all were just five inches long, & 10 in number.  The neck-feathers were very long, & loose like those on the neck of a roost-cock.  These birds weighed undrawn, & feathers & all, each 3 pds & 2 oun: The serrated claw on each middle toe is very curious! Tho’ the colours on the bittern’s wings & back are no ways gaudy or radiant, yet are the dark & chestnut streaks so curiously blended & combined, as to give that fowl a surprizing beauty.  Both the upper & lower mandible are serrated towards the point, & the upper is emarginated.  Two of these birds I dressed, & found the flavour to be like that of the wild duck, or teal, but not so delicate.  They were in good case, & their intestines covered with fat.  In the crop or gizzard I found nothing that could inform me on what they subsisted: both were quite empty.  I found nothing like the flavour of an hare!  The flesh of these birds was very brown.  It appears  since that all these bitterns were killed in Selborne parish, & probably were all of the same family.