2o6 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



" Tlic Coot bald, else clean black that whiteness it doth bear 

 Upon her forehead starred, the Water-hen doth ivear 

 Upon her little tail, in one small feather set^ 



Drayton. 

 " There have I -amtchcd the don'iiy Coot 

 Pacing with safe and steady foot, 

 The surface of the floating field, 

 ulnd though the clastic floor niiglit yield 

 In chinks, and let the loatcr Jloio 

 In beads of crystal from bcloiu, 

 Yet ii'as the tremulous region true 

 To that rough traveller passing through^ 



Faber. 



Above all, there was the moorhen, a bird that one can 

 surely never be tired of watching, it is so full of quips 

 and cranks. It has a little red wafer on its nose and 

 queer little patches of white under its tail, which it keeps 

 on flicking as it goes in a comical automatic sort of way, 

 in time with its steps, as if its tail were a kind of pedometer 

 measuring off the distances it walks. /\nd when it is in the 

 water swimming, it jerks its head backwards and forwards, 

 as if doing so helped it along and it could not help jerking 

 every time it kicked out its legs. And when it is in the 

 water, how it bobs about ! You can never depend upon it 

 for an instant, going in the direction it started for ; some- 



