68 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



UNSUSPECTED CRIMINALS. 



Another creature not usually suspected of poach- 

 ing is the moorhen ; but, according to some keepers, 

 this bird is almost a greater sinner than even the 

 hedgehog. They offer, of course, the usual evidence 

 for the prosecution that if you bait a trap with an 

 egg near the water-side you will most likely catch a 

 moorhen ; and certainly, if a moorhen will eat eggs, 

 its stealthy habit of creeping in and out of all sorts 

 of undergrowth and herbage must give it plenty of 

 opportunities of finding them. While, too, it is never 

 wise to take the keeper's word in such matters for 

 he is never so happy as when he is adding bird or 

 beast to the list of " vermin " to be killed at sight 

 still at the same time experience of wild life makes 

 one almost ready to believe that any creature which 

 habitually feeds on life will eat anything that it is 

 strong enough to make short work of. Until you 

 have seen the act, you would hardly believe that a 

 song-thrush will kill and eat the newly hatched young 

 of smaller birds, or that a domestic hen will kill and 

 eat a baby partridge, or that a duck will eat little 

 chickens. But these are all facts, though we can, if 

 we like, put them down as instances of individual 

 depravity. 



