WILD LIFE: FURRED AND FEATHERED. 55 



under the trees as a rule, close to the stems of the trees. 

 The partridges and their chicks do not visit these heaps, 

 for they would get bitten to death by the ferocious 

 creatures. The keepers and their lads procure their eggs ; 

 a wood-pick, a sack, and a shovel are the implements used. 

 Round the men's gaiters or trousers leather straps are 

 tightly buckled to prevent, if possible, the great ants 

 from fixing on them, as they will try to do, like bull-dogs, 

 when the heaps are harried. The top of the heap is 

 shovelled off, laying open the domestic arrangements 

 of the ant heap, and showing also the alarmed and furious 

 ants trying to carry off their large eggs to a place of 

 safety; but it is all in vain eggs and all, they go into 

 the sack. In spite of every precaution the ant egg getters 

 are bitten, often severely. The ants spit their strong 

 acid out most venomously. You may know when a lot 

 of heaps have been harried by the smell that greets your 

 nostrils as you walk near, as though some coarse kind 

 of aromatic vinegar had been poured out under the trees. 

 Then too you may see thousands of the creatures raised 

 up on their legs, their bodies bent under and forwards as 

 they spray formic acid in all directions. If you are foolish 

 enough to place your hand over the hollow in the heap 

 you will not soon forget it. 



The moorhen, or waterhen, disports himself now, in and 

 out of the dead sedges, clucking and flirting up his pert- 

 looking tail. He is thinking about nesting, and his mate 

 will not be far from him. The cock moorhen has put on 

 his breeding plumage, and although it is not a gaily- 



