206 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



There is a family of interesting British birds with 

 satiny plumage, called grebes or " loons." In one 

 of the volumes of the Badminton Library a great 

 crested grebe is represented flying across a stretch 

 of marsh, and having upon its back a beautifully 

 barred immature bird. This is a representation of a 

 fact admitted by ornithologists; and that the wood- 

 cock conveys its young to considerable distances 

 through the air is no recent discovery. The fact 

 was known as early as the middle of last century; 

 though Gilbert White rightly surmised that those 

 observers were mistaken who fancied that the young 

 was conveyed either by or in the bill. It is just as 

 erroneous, however, to substitute the claws, as some 

 have done, for the bill. The truth is, that when the 

 parent bird wishes to convey her young one from 

 a place of danger to one of safety, the tiny thing is 

 gently pressed between the mother's feet and 

 against her breast ; the aid of the bill being resorted 

 to only when the burden has been hastily taken up. 

 In this way the whole of the brood is sometimes 

 removed from one part of a wood to another if the 

 birds have been much disturbed. On this subject 

 there is an interesting note in Lays of a Deer Forest 

 by the brothers Stuart, 



" One morning, sitting on a grey stone, I watched a 

 dark eye which was fixed upon mine from the bed of 

 leaves before me, when suddenly the little brown 



