no Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



I have tracked a fox which had worked the reed beds in 

 search of wild duck, but though moorhens have existed 

 in great numbers, while wild duck were rare, Reynard 

 has gone on for a considerable distance hunting fruit- 

 lessly for duck, even though a moorhen could have been 

 pounced upon without much difficulty. In hard times, 

 however, I have known a fox to make his way to a tiny 

 pond where he knew a brace of moorhen were living, 

 and to catch and eat one of them — evidently a last 

 resource. It might be added, however, in justice to the 

 moorhen, that this bird may be a good deal more difficult 

 to catch by night than by day, for I have known a slow- 

 footed spaniel, which was no great guns at hunting, to 

 catch numerous moorhens while laboriously working the 

 rushes, bringing the live birds one after another to my 

 feet ; and it is almost inconceivable that this bird could 

 hold out against its wild foes, most of which are night 

 hunters, if it were not more alert and cautious after 

 sundown. 



A solitary moorhen, evidently a male bird, attached 

 itself to a small round pond adjacent to my home, and 

 was to be seen every morning running about the green- 

 sward under the windows. It took to feeding with the 

 poultry, having no difficulty in squeezing through the 

 large-mesh wire netting which enclosed their run, and 

 was every bit as tame as the fowls themselves. Very 

 early in the spring it appeared one morning with a mate, 

 and it was amusing to watch the male bird coaxing and 

 encouraging her — trying to convince her that she really 

 had nothing to fear from the members of the household. 

 She very soon overcame her shyness, and a little while 

 later the two built a nest in the fork of a dead tree which 

 lay partly submerged across their home pond. The 

 nest was lined with red and yellow laurel and rhododendron 

 leaves, and it really seemed that these had been chosen 



