Wild Life on a Surrey Moor 



the air as if someone had shot at her, and went off 

 with loud cries of protest, in which her ever-watchful 

 mate readily and loudly joined. 



As nothing stirred or sounded she ventured back 

 again, zigzagging to and fro behind the nest, getting 

 closer and closer until at last she warily thrust her head 

 into the tussock of heather concealing it and stopped to 

 listen. Nothing happening to upset her equanimity she 

 deftly stepped into the nest, hustled the eggs into the 

 warmest positions beneath her body, and settled quietly 

 down to the work of incubation. As she had her back 

 towards me the white star on her rump, a characteristic 

 mark of her species, could plainly be seen. 



I started to turn the handle of my camera very 

 slowly, but, in spite of the fact that its mechanism is 

 muffled like the door-knocker of a house of sickness, she 

 heard it, and springing up went off in the flash of a 

 thought. In fact, such was the hurry of her departure 

 that she dragged one egg out of the nest, and it rolled a 

 foot or more away. I was very curious to know what 

 would happen to this egg when its owner returned. 



After a little delay and a great deal of loud protest 

 she calmed down again and came back to the nest. She 

 did not observe the lonesome extruded egg at first, but 

 eventually catching sight of it she deliberately walked 

 out of the nest, and I kinematographed her in the act of 

 raking it home again with her bill, and finally sitting 

 down to cover it and the rest of the clutch ! 



On my way home I sat down on a crumbling turf 

 wall, dug from a ditch at my feet by long-vanished 



127 



