518 Remarks on Professor Rennie's Edition 



eggs in it, and placed it on the ground, about three yards 

 from the spot where we had found it. We continued in the 

 same place for some hours afterwards, working at the willows. 

 In the evening, when we went away, the old waterhen came 

 back to the nest. Having no more occasion for the labourer 

 in that place, I took the boat by myself the next morning, and 

 saw the waterhen sitting on the nest. On approaching the 

 place, I observed that she had collected a considerable 

 quantity of grass and weeds ; and that she had put them all 

 around the nest. A week after this I went to watch her, and 

 saw she had hatched ; and, as I drew nearer to her, she went 

 into the water, with the five little ones along with her. 



Birds which, on voluntarily leaving their nest, cover all 

 their eggs containing embryo chicks, equally cover those eggs 

 before they contain an embryo chick, that is, before they 

 begin to sit. Now, during the period of laying, the old 

 bird seldom returns to the nest above once in twenty-four 

 hours ; and then only to lay an egg^ and go away again. Are 

 the eggs, then, covered these four and twenty hours, to keep 

 them warm ? Put your hand upon them, and you will find 

 them " cold as any stone." Nay, more, you shall take one 

 of these eggs, which you find covered before the bird begins 

 to sit, and you shall immerse it for four and twenty hours in 

 water ; and if you put it back into the nest before the bird 

 begins to sit, you will find that she will hatch it at the same 

 time with the rest of the eggs. 



If, then, this egg will produce a bird after being four and 

 twenty hours in the water; and if the other eggs (in the case 

 of the waterhen) containing embryo chicks will produce birds 

 after being left uncovered some hours by the mother, may we 

 not venture to hazard a conjecture that the Professor, some- 

 how or other, has not exactly entered into the real notions 

 of waterfowl for covering their eggs with dry hay when they 

 leave the nest, both before and after they begin to sit ? 



I will here add an observation, " The Dabchick," says our 

 Professor, " covers its eggs to keep them warm ; for the vici- 

 nity of the nest to moist plants, or to water, would certainly 

 prove fatal to the embryo chicks, were she to leave the eggs 

 for a moment without covering them." But the wagtail will 

 build her nest within a foot of the water, and yet she never 

 covers the eggs when she leaves her nest. Now, the shell 

 of the wagtail's egg being much thinner than that of the 

 dabchick, might one not be apt to infer that the egg of the 

 wagtail would suffer sooner from cold than the egg of the 

 dabchick ? 



One is rather at a loss to know how the Professor disco- 



