Northern Observations of Inland Birds iii 



with an eye to their beauty — a sense of house pride on 

 the part of the birds, for other less ornamental materials 

 were everywhere at hand. Where they found the leaves 

 I could never make out, but at all events they made a 

 most artistic lining, and the nest, with its complete 

 clutch of eggs, presented a very taking picture. A little 

 while later the nest was torn to bits and its contents 

 destroyed, the muddy pawmarks on the decaying log 

 clearly indicating that house rats were the culprits — 

 evidently several of them. Some shells remained, but 

 most of the eggs had been carried away, while the two 

 old birds had also disappeared. Thus we could only 

 conclude that they, too, had fallen foul of the spoilers. 



In Norfolk I noticed the nest of a moorhen lodged in 

 a fork between the stout timbers of a railway bridge 

 spanning a sluggish river. This choice was characteristic 

 of the bird. On every side were miles and miles of 

 undisturbed fen country, yet the bird selected the man- 

 made structure over which several trains per day thundered 

 and rattled. It may be, however, that in the seeming 

 folly of the choice there lay a wisdom of selection of the 

 highest order. Did the bird know that the trains were 

 harmless, even though they were feared by the creatures 

 she had good cause to fear ? 



Many tales have been told about the cunning of the 

 moorhen in selecting its nesting sites. It is even said 

 that the bird often builds two nests, one close to the 

 water, another well above it, and that, should the water 

 rise and threaten the lower nest in which the eggs are 

 laid, the bird transfers them to the one at a safer level. 

 That the moorhen often builds two nests is certainly a 

 fact, but it would seem to me that as often as not they 

 are on the same level — that is, both well below high- 

 water mark, and consequently in simultaneous danger of 

 being flooded at any time, or both high above the highest 



