268 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



cannot be sure — some days before the eggs appeared. 

 But, two days afterwards, I found two other nests, or 

 nest-like structures, at different points of the same 

 pond, and these, for the reasons before given, must 

 most certainly have been made by the same pair of 

 birds ; for they were moorhens* nests, and to imagine 

 that four pairs of moorhens had been building in 

 so confined an area, without my ever having seen 

 more than two birds together, within it, though 

 watching morning and evening, and for hours at 

 a time, is to pensar en lo imposible^ as Don Quijote 

 is fond of saying. On the next day, I found the 

 first egg, in one of the two nests last noticed — not 

 in either of those, therefore, that I had seen the 

 bird sitting in. This was on the 5th of May, and 

 in as many days six more were added, making seven, 

 after which came the cat, and my record, which I 

 had hoped would be a very close and full one, came 

 to an end. During this time, however, I had remarked 

 yet a fifth nest, built against the trunk of a young 

 fir-tree, that had fallen into the same small clump 

 of rushes where the one with the eggs, and another, 

 were : and all these five had sprung up within 

 the last few weeks, for they had certainly not been 

 there before. The number of moorhens' nests 

 along the little stream, here, had often struck me 

 with surprise, though knowing it to be much 

 haunted by these birds. After these observations, 

 I paid more particular attention, and found, in one 

 place, four nests so close together as to make it very 

 unlikely they could have been the work of different 

 birds; and, of these, all but one remained perma- 

 nently empty. Moreover, the three others, though 



