96 Habit and Instinct. 



drinking. They squatted in it, dipping their heads and 

 waggling their tails as usual. For some ten minutes 

 they continued to wash in non-existent water, the 

 coolness of the tin to their breasts perhaps giving them 

 some satisfaction. Then I gave them water. The next 

 day the experiment was repeated with the dry tin. Again 

 they ran to it, shovelling along the bottom with their beaks, 

 and squatting down in it. But they soon gave up the 

 attempt to find satisfaction in a dry bath. On the third 

 morning they waddled up to the dry tin, and sadly departed. 

 One of my moorhen chicks, about a week old, showed, once 

 and once only, a slight dipping up and down of its breast 

 in the tin, but soon desisted ; nor was he seen again to do 

 anything of the sort, though he and the others enjoyed 

 standing in the water. Some five weeks later, one of the 

 birds was taken to a farmhouse in Yorkshire, and, on the 

 first morning after his arrival, was carried down to 

 the beck. When he reached the part of the stream where 

 it ran and broke over the pebbles, he stopped, ducked, and 

 took an elaborate bath, dipping his head well under, flicking 

 the water over himself, ruffling his feathers, and behaving 

 as such birds do when they bathe. Each day he did the 

 same, with a vigour which increased up to about the third 

 morning, and then remained constant. Whether this was 

 the same bird which before made an abortive attempt, I 

 am not certain, but probably not. In any case, the 

 definiteness of the first regular bath was very marked. 

 When the moorhen chicks were just a month old, I 

 noticed for the first time the characteristic upward flick 

 of the tail, then still quite black and downy, the white 

 under tail-coverts of the adult bird not appearing (as seven 

 yellowish-white feathers on each side, which were spread 

 by the bird when specially happy) for another month. 

 With regard to bathing, the following observation on 



