MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 197 



of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from 

 the grass and not disdaining crumbs thrown by the 

 children. A dainty thing to look at is that 

 smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about 

 with such freedom and ease in its small dominion, 

 lifting its green legs deliberately, turning its yel- 

 low beak and shield this way and that, and dis- 

 playing the snow-white undertail at every step, 

 as it moves with that quaint, graceful, jetting gait 

 peculiar to the gallinules. 



Such a fact as this — and numberless facts just 

 as significant all pointing to the same conclusion, 

 might be adduced — shows at once how utterly 

 erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's 

 that birds possess an instinctive or inherited fear 

 of man. These moor-hens fear him not at all; 

 simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot 

 at, and robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any 

 way molested by him. They fear no living thing, 

 except the irrepressible small dog that occasion- 

 ally bursts into the enclosure, and hunts them with 

 furious barkings to their reedy little refuge. And 

 as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild 

 birds; they fear and fly from, and suspiciously 

 watch from a safe distance, whatever molests 



