

MOOR-HEN. 115 



THE MOOR-HEN is one of those well-known, half domes- 

 ticated species which afford interesting opportunities for ob- 

 servations on habits. Dr. William Turner, who wrote on 

 British Birds three hundred years ago, calls this bird a 

 Water-hen, or a Mot-hen ; and Pennant says, that in the 

 days of moated houses they were very frequent about the 

 moats. They are found also on ponds which are covered 

 with aquatic herbage, old water-courses grown up with 

 vegetation, and among the rushes, reeds, and willows of 

 slow rivers. They can swim and dive with great facility, 

 assisted by an expansion of the membrane along the sides 

 of their toes ; a structure by which they are connected to the 

 fin-toed aquatic birds, the descriptions of which will imme- 

 diately follow. Moor-hens are commonly to be seen on the 

 surface of the water, swimming along with a nodding 

 motion of the head, picking up vegetable substances, first 

 on one side, then on the other, and feeding generally on 

 aquatic plants, small fishes, insects, worms, and slugs, for 

 some of which they may be seen early in the morning, and 

 again in the evening, walking over meadows near their 

 haunts, diligently searching among the grass, particularly 

 after a shower of rain in summer; jerking up their tails 

 as they walk along, and showing the white under tail- 

 coverts. Mr. Selby mentions that he has several times 

 known this bird to have been taken on a line baited 

 with an earth-worm, intended for catching eels and 

 trout ; and infers, therefore, that it is by diving they ob- 

 tain the larger coleopterous water insects, aquatic worms, 

 and the larvae of dragon-flies, upon which they are 

 known to feed. 



When suddenly disturbed, they will sometimes take a 

 short flight, with their legs hanging down, and will occa- 

 sionally perch in a tree ; they are, however, capable of 



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