1 JULY 1916, Page 22

THE RETURN OF THE BITTERNS. [TO THB EDITOR OF TEl

"SPECTATOR."] Sur,—The description of the bittern and its booming note in "The Deserted Village," IL 43-44, seems more true to Nature than those quoted from Southey and Thomson in your interesting article last week :— " Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest."

Goldsmith himself remarks (Anim. Nature, vi., p. 2) : "There is no sound so dismally hollow as the booming of a bittern."—! am, Sir, &c.,