THROUGH THE YEAR n 



have held. One of these little ponds is in a hazel and 

 oak spinney by the Sussex roadway, whilst the other 

 has just a feathering of wood on one side, where the 

 butterfly orchid is ready to blossom. A few sallows 

 and sedges grow at the edges of the ponds, and each 

 pond has its pair of moorhens. I found the two 

 nests almost at once. One is in a thorn, almost 

 flush with the water, and so full of eggs that they lay, 

 when I last saw them, one on the top of another. 

 If the pond rose two inches the nest must fill up with 

 water and the whole be spoiled. But the nest in 

 the spinney is very different. It is in the middle of 

 willow stems that spring straight out of the water, 

 and is built up eighteen inches or two feet above 

 the water. Perhaps this moorhen was wiser about 

 water than the other bird, or perhaps the spinney 

 pond is apt to rise higher in wet weather and sudden 

 storms. I cannot say which is likelier, for I have 

 not watched the building habits of the moorhen 

 closely enough ; but I know that the high-set rush 

 nest in the spinney pond is snug and safe. 



The nestlings hatched before mid-May and bubbled 

 out of the nest, tumbling into the water, where at 

 once they paddled and pecked, quite at their ease 

 imp-black, hairy little things, with a red, red 

 bill. They swam about among the sedges at the 

 edge of the pond, and by and by went back and 

 climbed into the neat rush nest. 



What precocity is in a nestling moorhen ! The 

 only other young birds I have seen return thus to 

 their nest have been wrens and cirl buntings ; they 



