THE COMMON WATERHEN. 327 



labourers were daily at work, though places of the most retired 

 character were quite contiguous. .Two pair having nests there 

 in the summer of 1S31 had them destroyed by the sudden filling 

 of tlie pond in which they were placed, after it had been for a 

 long time dry. The calamity seemed to provoke their wrath, as 

 a very obstinate engagement ensued. They fought while standing 

 in the water, and struck each other with their feet, crowing 

 loudly in defiance all the time.* After the destruction of these two 

 nests, three were made, one on the top of a very large stone in the 

 pond ; another at the base of the stem of a willow, which grew 

 horizontally over the water before shooting upwards ; the third on 

 the ground within a foot of the water's edge. On the 10th of 

 September that year there was an incursion of waterhens to the 

 pond, when the old pair, together with their young, which had 

 been brought out there, took possession of an island, and, like 

 sentinels, kept moving along its borders. Whenever any of the 

 new comers attempted a landing they were completely beaten back 

 — it was an amusing scene from the whole being conducted with 

 soldier-like regularity. 



When this pond was filled in May 1832, after having been for 

 some time dry, there were also two nests of the waterhen, one of 

 which was on the stem of an overhanging willow. When the water 

 approached it, one of the pair kept running quickly to the nest with 

 small sticks in its bill, while the other remained there, to fix them 

 beneath, so that before the water reached the eggs the nest was 

 raised about six inches : this unfortunately proved to be labour 

 in vain, as the eggs were destroyed.f The same pair afterwards 



* Mr. R. J. Montgomery, writing to me on the 9th of March, 1849, remarked — 

 " Waterhens when pairing, fight violently for the females. They stand nearly 

 upright in the water and strike with the feet. I watched a pair the other morning 

 for half an hour, while they struck each other until one got the better of his anta- 

 gonist. He then seized him by the head with his beak, and would I think have 

 killed him had I not thought proper to interfere. The female all the time looked on 

 quietly." 



-]■ Mr. Selby, in an interesting communication to the Berwickshire Naturalists' 

 Club, mentions a pair of waterhens not only adding to their nest under similar cir- 

 cumstances but removing the eggs until the nest had reached its height, when they 

 were safely replaced. A remarkable instance of the intelligence of this species is 

 given in Stanley's ' Familiar History of Birds,' vol. ii. p. 127, 3rd edit. 



