ii6 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



I have already described how a fox will pass moorhens 

 by for so long as there is a hope of catching more appetizing 

 game, but sooner or later the day comes when he returns 

 for the bird which he has passed by indifferently so many 

 times, while it in all probability has become more or 

 less indifferent towards him ; and now assuredly that 

 bird dies. It is in this way that the moorhen figures in 

 Nature's economy — not as a wholesale victim at all times 

 but as a creature which, when needed at all, is badly needed. 

 Among animals the porcupine — which may spend half 

 its life in one tree, which is best left alone in normal 

 times but which, in seasons of life or death, can be 

 returned for and caught — figures in the same capacity. 

 All this may appear contrary to Darwin's lines of reason- 

 ing, but a little thought will show that it is merely a case 

 of viewing the matter from a different standpoint. 



Though so much of a land bird, the newly-hatched 

 young of the moorhen are even more at home in the water 

 than are ducklings and other young birds which depend 

 upon their swimming and diving to a far greater extent. 

 Old moorhens can dive well, but they seldom do so, 

 and obtain very little food in this way. They are essentially 

 land and surface feeders. On Loch Ken, however, I 

 have repeatedly seen newly-hatched moorhen chicks 

 striving to escape observation by diving into the shallow 

 water among the new rushes. They submerge with 

 surprising alacrity, and swimming below the surface, 

 using their feet and wings, they hunt round for a suitable 

 place of hiding on the bed, and crouch there perfectly 

 still for a considerable time, the air in their down giving 

 them a bright silvery appearance. Presently one will 

 be seen to rise to the surface, and lying under a prostrate 

 reed or lily leaf it pokes up its beak and refills its lungs, 

 remaining thus, almost totally submerged, till a fresh 

 movement on the part of the trespasser causes it again 



