EVENING SCENES 267 



resented, but I never saw or heard any brawling. 

 The pretty scene of peaceful, calm, loving pro- 

 prietorship, was not once disturbed 



When the two birds were together, one swam, 

 commonly, but just behind the other, and kept 

 pressing against it in a series of little, soft impulses 

 — a quietly amorous manner, much for edification 

 to see. Each night, from a little before the darkness 

 closed in, one of these moorhens — I believe always 

 the same one — would climb out on a particular 

 branch of the fallen tree, and standing there, just 

 on the edge of the black water, bathe and preen 

 itself till I could see it no longer. It never varied 

 from just this one place on the branch, which, 

 though a thin one, made there a sort of loop in 

 the water, where it could stand, or sit, very com- 

 fortably. The other of the two had, no doubt, a 

 tiring-place of its own — I judge so, at least, because 

 it would, probably, have bathed and preened about 

 the same time, but, if so, it did so somewhere 

 where I could not see it. Moorhens have special 

 bathing-places, to which one may see several come, 

 one after the other. This is at various times of 

 the day, but I have noticed, too, this special last 

 bathe and preening, before retiring for the night ; 

 and here I do not remember seeing two birds resort 

 to the same spot. There would seem, therefore, to 

 be a general bathing-place for the daytime, and a 

 private one for the evening. 



Here, then, we have two nests built by one and 

 the same pair of moorhens, both of which were sat 

 in — whether as a matter of convenience, by both 

 parties, or by the female, only, in order to lay, I 



