Co Habit and Instinct. 



anything, such as a cloth heaped up on the ground, and 

 use their skinny wings in a peculiar alternating hand-over- 

 hand fashion which is also seen in young dabchicks and in 

 the South American hoactzin (Opisthocomus cristatus). 



This bird has, when quite young, the thumb or bastard 

 wing armed with a claw, a second claw being developed 

 on the digit of the wing corresponding to our index finger. 

 The nestlings crawl about almost like young quadrupeds, 

 and can hold on to the nest or twigs by means of the 

 clawed wings.* 



If the skinny wing of a newly-hatched moorhen be 

 examined, the thumb or pollex is found to be relatively 

 large, and also armed t with a claw ; and though I have 

 not observed that this claw is of much use in climbing* 

 still the wings are used in a manner very different from 

 that which is seen in pheasants or partridges. These 

 birds, too, have a tendency to leap up on to one's foot 

 or a low hassock (and, in the case of a little partridge, on 

 to my fox-terrier's back as he lay !) which reminds one of 

 the way in which they climb on to the mother bird's back. 

 But the scrambling up of the moorhen chick is differently 

 performed, with a curious hand-over-hand action. One 

 need hardly point out that such a mode of clambering 

 would be of use to the little bird under the natural 

 conditions of its life, and would help it to climb into the 

 loosely compacted nest. At a later period, when my sole 

 surviving moorhen was about six weeks old, he was taken 

 to a farm near which ran a little beck. The manner 

 in which he scrambled up and down the bank and ran 

 rapidly to and fro among the rushes, threading his way 

 with neatness and ease, was noteworthy, since he had 



* See J. J. Quelch, Ibis for 1890, pp. 327, 335; also W. P. Pycraft, 

 Natural Science, vol. v. p. 358 ; and Fredk. A. Lucas, " Keport of U.S. 

 National Museum for 1893," p. 662, where the young birds are figured. 



