212 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



localities the keeper is generally too apt to con- 

 fine his attention. When suddenly disturbed, 

 the hen will sometimes rise at once, as she would 

 if leaving the nest voluntarily in search of food, 

 and thus expose her treasure to the eyes of any 

 wandering clown who may have unintentionally 

 stumbled on the spot; but more frequently she 

 has recourse to artifice, and on the approach of 

 danger quietly slips off her eggs, and runs with a 

 noiseless pace for a considerable distance before 

 she takes wing. On returning to the nest, how- 

 ever, she adopts a different manoeuvre, and if 

 her only enemies were of that class usually de- 

 nominated vermin, it would almost invariably be 

 attended with success. She continues on the 

 wing until she arrives immediately over the nest, 

 and then drops at once upon it, thus leaving no 

 beaten track through the long grass by which 

 the indefatigable stoat or the prowling cat could 

 find a ready clue to her citadel, or which would 

 at once catch the eye of the cunning magpie or 

 the hungry crow while sailing over the field on a 

 foraging expedition. With the poacher, how- 

 ever, the case is different. He has only to secrete 

 himself under a tree or, it may be, to sit leisurely 

 on a neighbouring stile, immediately after feeding 

 time in the early morning or in the afternoon, 

 and watch the female bird as she returns to the 



