96 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



way of experiment I have at various times thrown 

 myself on pheasants, partridges, and grouse, when 

 I have found them with a family of recently hatched 

 chicks ; then on giving up the chase and turning 

 away from the bird its instantaneous recovery has 

 seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because 

 the creature did actually suffer from all those violent 

 debilitating emotions expressed in its disordered 

 cries and action, and it is the miracle of Nature's 

 marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown 

 into these violent extremes of passion we should 

 not escape the after effects. Our whole system would 

 suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in 

 and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the 

 development of toxins in the muscles and give us 

 a bottle of medicine. 



I will conclude this digression and dissertation 

 on a bird's instinct by relating the action of a hen 

 pheasant I once witnessed, partly because it is the 

 most striking one I have met with of that instan- 

 taneous recovery of a bird from an extremity of 

 distress and terror, and partly for another reason 

 which will appear at the end. 



The hen pheasant was a solitary bird, having 

 strayed away from the pheasant copses near the 

 Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on 

 the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses 

 and sedges on its border. I was the bird's only 



