THE MOOK-HEN. * 467 



cry and see the bird itself at some little distance, swim- 

 ming about with a restless jerky motion, often dipping its 

 head, and with every dip turning slightly to the right o^' 

 the left. If he wishes for a nearer view, let him advance 

 quietly, concealing himself as much as he can ; for if he 

 proceeds carelessly, and takes off his eyes for any con- 

 siderable time from the spot where he observed it, when 

 he looks again it will have disappeared, taken wing, he 

 may imagine, for some distant part of the water. Not so ; 

 the cunning bird, as soon as a stranger was perceived 

 within a dangerous proximity, steered quietly for the 

 nearest tuft of reeds, among which it lies ensconced till 

 he has passed on his way. Or it rose out of the water, 

 and, with its feet trailing on the surface, made for a 

 similar place of concealment; or dived to the bottom, 

 where it still remains clinging to the weeds. Perhaps it 

 lies close to his feet, having sunk beneath the water, and, 

 aided by feet and wings, rowed a subaqueous course to an 

 often-tried thicket of rushes, where, holding on with its 

 feet to the stems of submersed weeds, it remains perfectly 

 still, leaving nothing above the surface of the water but 

 the point of its beak. If the observer suspects the where- 

 abouts of its concealment, he may beat the rushes with his 

 stick and produce no efi'ect ; the bird knows itself to be 

 safe where it is and will make no foolish attempt to better 

 itself. A water spaniel or ^Newfoundland dog will be more 

 effective. Very often an animal of this kind is an over- 

 match for its sagacity, and seizes it in his mouth before the 

 poor bird was aware that the water itself was to be invaded ; 

 but more frequently it discovers an onset of this nature in 

 time to clear itself from its mooiings, and dashing out with 

 a splashing movement of feet and wings skims across the 

 pond to another lurking-place, and defies further pursuit. " 

 The Gallinule, though an excellent swimmer and diver, 

 belongs to the Waders ; it has, consequently, free use of 

 its legs on land, and here it is no less nimble than in the 



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