Moorland Birds 



vided that you do not catch their eye. Im- 

 mediately they see that you see them, they are off. 

 Not long ago when wishing to photograph a 

 Partridge sitting on its nest in the middle of a 

 plain grass field, I tested this theory. Fixing my 

 eyes on a spot some little distance to one side of 

 her, I approached quietly and the bird allowed me 

 to set up my camera, take her picture and depart, 

 without appearing much disturbed. Shakespeare 

 tells us that men used to find Woodcock by their 

 large black eyes and then shoot them with cross- 

 bows, while sitting. Whether the Nightjar recog- 

 nises the fact that its eyes may betray it, or 

 whether it is on account of its nocturnal habits and 

 its dislike of the glare of broad daylight, certain it 

 is that whenever one does see the bird sitting, its 

 eyes are almost invariably closed. 



It is well nigh impossible to give an accurate 

 impression of the bird in words, for its upper 

 surface is such a mixture of brown, black, 

 rusty red and white, wonderfully diversified, but 

 presenting the appearance of being streaked 

 longitudinally from head to tail. The breast is 

 similarly coloured to the back, but this gives place 

 on the abdomen to fulvous, barred with blackish- 

 brown. 



It is not hard to understand that such a bird 

 would harmonise closely with its favourite sur- 

 roundings of dead bracken or even with the bare 

 ground. When sitting, it resembles some decay- 



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