Northern Observations of Inland Birds 109 



at all follow that the reverse applies. Moorhens will 

 make their homes by the tiniest ponds and streams, 

 totally inadequate for the supplying of their needs were 

 they solely dependent upon the water for food, but the 

 larger bird is seldom found remote from wide expanses 

 of water. The coot does not attach itself to little springs 

 and small homestead ponds, but is essentially a bird of 

 our lochs and tarns, with the result that it is less under 

 observation. 



Having thus described the chief difference in the 

 characters of the two, a few observations and anecdotes 

 may serve to make the reader better acquainted with 

 them. 



The moorhen, as its environment suggests, falls mid- 

 way between the land birds and the water birds. Its 

 feet are not webbed, but they are large for its size, enabling 

 it to run with ease over the softest mud, or even over the 

 scum of decaying vegetation which often covers the 

 water on the leeward side of its home. It is, in many 

 ways, among the most foolish of our wild birds, as it 

 shares the propensity of the ostrich and the proverbial 

 dodo. Not long ago I was following a small stream 

 when in a dip of the landscape I surprised a moorhen. 

 I was so close to it when it caught sight of me that the 

 bird immediately became panic-stricken, and darting a 

 foot or so it jammed its head into a mouse hole and 

 crouched there, perfectly still, its entire body con- 

 spicuously outlined against the red clay bank. I went 

 quietly up to it and took it in my hands, and on other 

 occasions I have often caught moorhens as they cowered 

 in the rushes. Some people consider them good to eat, 

 but the peculiar " pondy *' smell of the bird does not 

 seem to suggest that it would prove very palatable. 



It is, moreover, noticeable that even where moorhens 

 are very abundant, foxes seldom trouble to hunt them. 



