Dr. Stanley s Observations. 55 



pay the pond a visit), owls, weasels, rats, and even 

 large eels are only a few of those ever ready to prey 

 upon them ; so that perhaps the eager surveillance and 

 domineering drill-sergeant air of the water-hen towards 

 its young is not to be wondered at, more especially 

 when we consider the open places it often homes in. 

 Certainly there is no lack of fertility on the part of the 

 water-hen ; she lays seven or eight eggs, and has two 

 or three broods a year. Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich 

 (venerated father of the late Dean Stanley, and a minute 

 and careful observer), says that they produce several 

 broods a year, and that when all the broods survive, a 

 second nest is built. This was last year the case with 

 a pair on this very pond, which added much to the 

 parental care and responsibility ; and the business of 

 giving warning-calls to the elder brood without leaving 

 the second nest was sometimes so earnest and urgent 

 as to be quite touching. They are decidedly clever 

 birds in their own way, though, as often happens with 

 nature's nurslings, they are unaccountably stupid in 

 other and apparently simpler matters, as some of their 

 calls is enough to show. Dr. Stanley observed that 

 when a water-hen had noticed a pheasant leap on the 

 ' board of the feeding-boxes the keepers place for them, 

 and they by its weight opened the lid, she at once tried 

 the same thing ; but finding she was not heavy enough, 

 she went for a friend, and the combined weight of the 

 two sufficed to secure them a good feed, as reward for 

 their astuteness. In favourable circumstances, too, the 

 water-hens show some eye for beauty, and, like the 

 bower birds, will decorate their nests. If near gar- 

 dens, they will sometimes pilfer flowers of bright 

 colours particularly scarlet, for which they have a 

 great fancy wreaths of scarlet anemones having been 



