. Birds a?id Birdnesthig, 601 



Art. III. Something about Birds and Birdnesting, By RusTicus. 



Sir, 

 ' Unskilled in the abstruser departments, I have often been 

 ^a^lighted with those particular parts of your work which smell 

 so freshly of woods and fields, and seem to me like a mirror 

 in which one may behold a true and faithful reflection of 

 Nature's face. Among your contributors in this way, none 

 speaks to the heart like the " wanderer " Waterton. A good 

 deal has been said in your pages of birds' nests, and different 

 opinions expressed as to the manner in which the process of 

 caretaking is managed by the old birds : in comparing what I 

 read, with my previous knowledge of the subject, I find Mr. 

 Waterton always right, and several of your other correspond- 

 ents always wrong. 



The district to which my observations have been pretty 

 much restricted, is that of Godalming, in Surrey ; and though 

 they have little that is wonderful to recommend them, let their 

 truth plead their cause, and obtain for them a place among 

 your more scientific and valuable articles. 



Hahlls of the Moorhen. — The piece of water called Old 

 ,^Pond, about one mile from Godalming, on the London road, 

 is a most attractive spot to waterfowl; and an island in its 

 "centre is the resort of some of them in the breeding season, 

 ^^and also of a variety of other birds, which find it a safe and 

 unmolested place for the same purpose. I have often delighted, 

 in years that are gone, to visit this island and its inmates ; 

 the owner, Robert Moline, Esq., used to allow us free in- 

 gress to all and every part of the estate; a liberty any one 

 with an incipient thirst for a knowledge of natural history 

 Would be sure to avail himself of. One day, having pushed 

 off from the shore, and moored the little shallop to some of 

 the osiers which surrounded the island, I began my accus- 

 tomed examination : the first object that attracted my atten- 

 tion was a lot of dry rushes, flags, reeds, &c., enough to fill a 

 couple of bushel baskets. This mass was lodged about 20 ft. 

 from the ground, in a spruce fir tree, and looked for all the 

 world as if it had been pitched there with a hayfork. I 

 mounted instantly, thinking of herons, eagles, and a variety of 

 other wonders : just, as my head reached the nest, flap-flap, 

 out came a moorhen, and, dropping to the water, made off in 

 a direct line along its surface, dip-dip- dip-dipping with its 

 .^oes (they do this just to cool their toes, 1 have often conjec- 

 tured), and was at last lost in the rushes of a distant bank, 

 leaving an evanescent track along the water, like that occa- 

 sioned by^\stone which has been skilfully thrown to n\ake 



