xin RIVERSIDE LETTERS 105 



middle of the day, in the hot sun, a very 

 exhausting process, as they continually leave 

 a track of slime behind them. In the night- 

 time, when they usually travel, no doubt 

 they could go very much farther as the 

 ground is clamp with dew and easier for 

 their mode of progress. 



Moorhens are very rightly named, as they 

 are not only very like our domestic hens 

 in aspect and way of walking and feeding, 

 but their cry also greatly resembles that 

 of our hens. The commonest noise that 

 they make is a sharp jerky one which sounds 

 like checkgrec, but they have also an alarm 

 or danger cry which is not at all unlike that 

 which a hen makes when it is being chased 

 or caught. Young moorhens cheep just 

 like little chickens, and when older, and 

 they get driven away by their parents, I 

 have heard them make just the cry or plain- 

 tive cheep that large chickens do about the 

 time that they are cracking their voices. 



This year the old saying about St. Swithin 



