i8z BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



flies down like lightning to court her, and perhaps to 

 fight another cock, who has been waiting for the hens as 

 well as he, for there are generally more cocks come over 

 than hens ; and they fight fiercely, as the fenmen bear testi- 

 mony, though I have never seen one of these love-combats, 

 but fenmen tell me they have often seen them fighting and 

 shrieking in the air at the pairing season. Then, too, the 

 fenmen are on the alert, hiding up to watch for them ; and 

 if ever the birds catch a glimpse of the gun-barrel, they begin 

 to jerk themselves about, and the fenman waits patiently till 

 one steadies himself again, when he "cuts it inter him." 



The more wily gunners, too, leave rails' and waterhens' 

 eggs in their beats as a decoy, hiding near by, and when the 

 birds pounce down to suck them, they fire upon them from 

 their ambush. 



And if you wander through the swamps, raising a cloud of 

 midges that sting you into red lumps, the cock will sight you 

 at once, and come towards you, like the swan, full of inquiry, 

 turning to right and to left, and shrieking his wild call ; then 

 you see him go up into the blue some two hundred yards, 

 then turn on his side and fly about like a snipe, going more 

 quickly than before ; but if you disregard these antics, aimed 

 at leading you away for if you follow him he will take you 

 a quarter of a mile in one of these ascents before you know 

 it and look for the nest, you may presently step right on 

 the hen-bird crouching low like a pheasant on her brood, 

 when up she starts with a shriek ; and as you bend over the 

 nestlings, the old birds return and fly about in the liquid air 

 above you, shrieking their odd notes and fluttering down, 

 almost touching your cap ; and when the young are robbed, 

 they follow crying, for a short distance, then turn and dis- 

 appear in the blue, leaving their white fluffy children in 

 your possession. 



After very hard winters, such as we have had of late, they 

 do not seem to breed ; the leafage hangs back on reluctant 

 wings, and they seem to go on elsewhere to nest. 



