56 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



These interesting notes are most acceptable, and I also appre- 

 ciate the use of the word Moorcock for the male bird. If the 

 female is Moorhen, surely the male must be Moorcock, in the 

 same way as we use Peahen (female) and Peacock (male). The 

 Moorhen does undoubtedly slip off her nest in a very unobtrusive 

 way, and, although specimens of these birds that are kept on 

 artificial sheets of water become fairly tame, when nesting, it is 

 true, as my correspondent states, that this solicitous bird is 

 difficult to get a good sight of. I think there is no question that 

 male and female both help in the work of incubation, indeed, if 

 I remember rightly, one of the bird films I use at my Kinema 

 Lectures proves this. Here we have another instance of the 

 value of the kinematograph in regard to the study of wild 

 creatures. I have certainly seen both the Moorhen and Moor- 

 cock swimming about in company with their chicks on many 

 occasions, and the latter are very pretty when in infancy, being 

 mere balls of sooty black down. They are very active for babies, 

 and Mr Shirley has recorded that a young Waterhen (still another 

 familiar name for this familiar bird) a day old is incomparably 

 cleverer than a year old infant ! The male Wild Duck does 

 shirk parental duties as, while the female is incubating her eggs, 

 the male goes into hiding for the purpose of undergoing the 

 first of his two moults. The duck, therefore, has all the cares 

 of parentage thrust upon her. When the drake returns to his 

 mate, he has, wonderful to relate, assumed the attire of his wife, 

 having lost the handsome dress we usually associate with him. 

 Later on, he moults again, and in the Autumn comes forth in all 

 the splendour of male attire. 



I have spent many happy hours watching the Spotted Fly- 

 catcher adroitly suspending itself in mid-air snapping at unwary 

 insects, and I have witnessed more times than I can recount 

 the parent birds teaching their young the elements of their 

 profession. No other bird is so adroit at fly-catching, and I do 

 not know of another which works as hard to earn its living. This 

 soberly-clad, but eminently useful, bird has been a favourite of 

 mine since early days, and its coming in Spring, and departure 

 in Autumn, is linked up with old-world gardens, orchards, quiet 

 stretches of sportive woodland, and shady nooks, old associations 

 which go to make bird-watching so enchanting. It is not the 

 mere first chronicling of this bird, or that, which stimulates en- 

 thusiasm and careful study, but to be able to find the same species 

 in the same place, year by year, brings to the bird -lover memories 



