THE PROCESSION OF SPRING 235 



soon become stained and brown. The nest is so 

 deceptive in appearance — just a tangled mass of water- 

 weed — that even the sharp eye of the schoolboy seldom 

 finds it out. 



For the direct opposite of this, see the nest of the 

 waterhen. Fair and open, it is placed where the end 

 of a sunken willow-bough peeps out of the water. The 

 bird has just slipped off the nest. There are seven 

 eggs already ; it is easy enough to count them from 

 the bank. The schoolboys found the nest some days 

 ago. Next Saturday afternoon they will fish out all 

 the eggs with a scoop at the end of a stick. A " goord" 

 they call it ; by which they mean a " goad." Poor 

 moorhen ! Her eggs make such a gallant show when 

 threaded on a string. 



Long before the moorhens began to build the rooks 

 and jackdaws were hard at work. A pleasant scene is 

 that of a rookery in early spring. Few sounds have so 

 much power to recall forgotten scenes as the noise of 

 building rooks. I think the caw of rooks would make 

 an English Sunday in the middle of a desert. But 

 grievous charges are brought against the rook, which, 

 sad to say, cannot be disproved outright. The practice 

 of shooting young rooks has been given up to a great 

 extent of late years. So that rooks, it seems, are 



