Water- Hens. 



53 



The intrusion of the owl intimates to me that I must 

 not farther dilate on nature's inanimate shows at morn 

 or eventide (for that would occupy many pages); I 

 must speak of the living creatures that morning, noon, 

 and night bring to my pond an attraction of their 

 own. A small community of water-hens have found 

 homes here, one couple in the black bullace tree 

 yonder, which spreads its branches over the water, 

 forming a tent-like screen; and as sometimes I sit, 

 half hidden in foliage, on the north side of the pond 

 (for the fish, at certain times and seasons, will quit the 

 freshet and seek coolness and rest in the shadows there), 

 they will lead their broods along the margin with their 

 peculiar, measured, 

 careful tread, and 

 with their peculiar 

 cry — a kind of quick- 

 ened and sharpened 

 cluck, cluck of the 

 ordinary farm - yard 

 fowl, suggesting 

 vaguely possibilities 

 of domestication and 

 tameness, which, 

 however, are some- 

 what rudely dispelled when any cause of fear or alarm 

 arises. The warning or call-note then given is of a 

 very wild, harsh, and grating half-saw-like character — 

 a call which cannot, however, be called a very cunning 

 one, for it would inevitably draw even a tyro's atten- 

 tion to the exact whereabouts of the bird. On the 

 slightest hint of strange intrusion into their domain, 

 they utter this harsh and grating cry, and speedily 

 retreat, marching their youngsters home again to their 



WATER-HEN. 



