240 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
yet still attached to the stem, puffing up their dark 
feathers like a black ball. 
If all be quiet, the moorhens come out now and 
then into the meadow; and then, as they stand 
upright out of the water, the peculiar way in which 
their tails, white marked, are turned upwards is 
visible. The bill is of a fine colour—almost the 
‘orange-tawny’ of the blackbird, set in thick red 
coral at its base. Under the shallow water at the 
mouth of the pond the marks of their feet on the 
mud may be traced: they run swiftly, and depend 
upon that speed and the skilful tricks they practise in 
diving—turning back and dodging under water like a 
hare in the fields—to escape from pursuit, rather than 
on their wings. Through the thick green flags they 
creep, and into the holes the water-rats have made, or 
behind and under the natural cavities in the stoles 
upon the bank. They beat the water with their wings 
when they rise, showering the spray on either side, for 
a short distance, and then, ascending on an inclined 
plane, fly heavily, but with some strength. 
At night is their time of journeying, when they 
come down from the lake or return to it, uttering a 
weird cry in the darkened atmosphere. By day, as 
they swim to and froin the flags and through the 
duckweed, shaded from the hot sun under willow and 
aspen, they call to each other, not unpleasantly, a 
note something like ‘croog, with a twirl of the ‘r’ 
In summer they do not move far from the place they 
