282 VARIOUS NAMES. [CHAP. iv. 



but the Water Hen is little thought of, even by the 

 strollers in Saint James's Park. In the country, if we 

 have a sedgy stream hard by, or a fish-pond half choked 

 with weeds, or a mill-dam skirted with a few osier banks, 

 the Water Hen attracts the attention of the most indif- 

 ferent observer by its merry freaks, its odd noises, the 

 perplexing "fast and loose" system on which it ever 

 and obstinately treats all human society and neighbour- 

 hood, and the remarkable faculty which it exhibits of 

 making itself quite at home in every one of the four 

 elements, fire alone excepted. 



We have adopted " Water Hen" as the most appro- 

 priate English name of the Gallinula chloropus, or 

 Green-footed Gallinule. " Moor Hen" suggests to the 

 mind the Moor-fowl or Moor-game, a gallinaceous bird, 

 and besides sounds and looks like a corruption of the old 

 title, " Moat Hen," which is far more correctly applied. 

 A moor, if we bear those of Yorkshire and Scotland in 

 mind, is an uncultivated tract or waste, in the uplands, 

 or table-lands, or on the shoulders of hills ; and though 

 such places do abound in standing water and rushy pools, 

 they are more likely to be the haunt of the Mallard than 

 of the Water Hen, which much prefers the warm, muddy, 

 weed-covered creeks in low fenny districts. 



In two remarkable peculiarities, either of which ought 

 to draw upon them the close attention of naturalists, 

 Water Hens are anomalous birds. They have feet ap- 

 parently as little adapted for swimming as those of a 

 Pigeon or a Lark, and yet are as much at ease in the 

 water as any bird whatever which is not of oceanic ha- 

 bits; and they seem, from delighting in an approach to 

 the dwellings of Man, to require only a little persuasion, 

 and encouragement, and kindness, to become perfectly 



