THE FIRST BEGINNING 279 



moorhen employs no ruse, to divert attention from 

 its young. The following circumstance, therefore, 

 as bearing on my theory of the origin of such 

 stratagems, especially interested me. In this case I 

 came suddenly upon a point of the stream where 

 the bank was precipitous, on which a moorhen flew 

 out upon the water, with a loud clacking note, 

 and then, after some very disturbed motions, swam 

 to the opposite shore, giving constant, violent 

 flirts of the tail, the white feathers of which were, 

 each time, broadened out, as when two male birds 

 fight, or threaten one another. In this state she 

 went but slowly, though most birds in her posi- 

 tion would have flown right ofF. On my coming 

 closer to the edge of the bank, six or seven young 

 chicks started out, all in different directions, as 

 though from a central point where they had been 

 sitting together on the water, as, no doubt, they had 

 been, the mother with them, just as though upon 

 the nest. No one could have thought that this 

 moorhen had any idea of diverting attention from 

 her young to herself. Sudden alarm, producing, at 

 first, a nervous shock, and then distress and appre- 

 hension, seemed to me, clearly, the cause of her 

 actions, which yet bore a rude resemblance to highly 

 specialised ones, and had much the same effect. 

 From such beginnings, in my opinion, and not 

 from successive " small doses of reason," have the 

 most elaborate " ruses " been evolved and perfected. 

 In one or two other instances in a wood-pigeon, 

 for example, and a pheasant I have noticed the 

 strange effect amounting, for a few moments, to a 

 sort of paralysis which a very sudden surprise may 



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