23* tHE MOOR-HEN 



considerable time from the spot where he observed it, when he 

 looks again it will have disappeared, taken wing, he may imagine, 

 for some distant part of the water. Not so ; the cunning bird, 

 as soon as a stranger was perceived within a dangerous proximity, 

 steered quietly for the nearest tuft of reeds, among which it lies 

 ensconced till he has passed on his way. Or it rose out of the 

 water, and, with its feet trailing on the surface, made for a similar 

 place of concealment ; or dived to the bottom, where it still re- 

 mains clinging to the weeds. Perhaps it lies close to his feet, 

 having sunk beneath the water, and, aided by feet and wings, 

 rowed a subaqueous course to an often-tried thicket of rushes, 

 where, holding on with its feet to the stems of submerged weeds, 

 it remains perfectly stUl, leaving nothing above the surface of the 

 water but the point of its beak. If the observer suspects the 

 whereabouts of its concealment, he may beat the rushes with his 

 stick and produce no effect ; the bird knows itself to be safe where 

 it is and wiU make no foolish attempt to better itself. A water 

 spaniel or Newfoundland dog will be more effective. Very often 

 an animal of this kind is an overmatch for its sagacity, and seizes 

 it in his mouth before the poor bird was aware that the water 

 itself was to be invaded ; but more frequently it discovers an 

 onset of this nature in time to clear itself from its moorings, and 

 dashing out with a splashing movement of feet and wings skims 

 across the pond to another lurking-place, and defies further 

 pursuit. 



The Gallinule, though an excellent swimmer and diver, belongs 

 to the Waders ; it has, consequently, free use of its legs on land, 

 and here it is no less nimble than in the water. When induced to 

 change the scene it steps ashore, and, with a peculiar jerking 

 motion of its taU, showing the white feathers beneath, and very 

 conspicuous by its bright red biU, which harmonizes pleasantly 

 with the green grass, it struts about and picks up worms, insects, 

 snaUs, or seeds, with unflagging perseverance, making no stay 

 anjAvhere, and often running rapidly. If surprised on these 

 occasions, it either makes for the water, or flies off in a line for 

 some thick hedge or patch of brush-wood, from which it is very 

 difficult to dislodge it. 



Its mode of life is pretty much the same all the year round ; 

 it is not a traveller from choice. Only in severe weather, when 

 its haunts are bound up with ice, it is perforce compelled to shift 

 its quarters. It then travels by night and searches for unfrozen 

 streams. At such times it appears occasionally in pretty large 

 numbers in places where usually a few only resort. When the 

 south of Europe is visited by severe frosts it is supposed even to 

 cross the Mediterranean, it having been observed in Algeria, feeding 

 in marshes in half-social parties, where a day or two before none 

 bad been seen. To the faculties of swimming and running it 



