BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 117 



after-effects. Our whole system would suffer, a 

 doctor would perhaps have to be called in and 

 would discourse wisely on metabolism and the de- 

 velopment of toxins in the muscles, and give us 

 a bottle of medicine. 



I will conclude this digression and dissertation 

 on a bird's instinct by relating the action of a 

 hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because it 

 is the most striking one I have met with of that in- 

 stantaneous recovery of a bird from an extremity 

 of distress and terror, and partly for another 

 reason which will appear at the end. 



The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having 

 strayed away from the pheasant copses near the 

 Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on 

 the other side of the valley, among the tall 

 grasses and sedges on its border. I was the bird's 

 only human neighbour, as I was staying in a fish- 

 ing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its 

 nest. Eventually, it brought off eight chicks and 

 remained with them at the same spot on the edge 

 of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges 

 and tall valley herbage. I never went near the 

 bird, but from the cottage caught sight of it from 

 time to time, and sometimes watched it with my 



