i64 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



settle there for the season, in full sight of the fashion- 

 able world ; for their breeding-place happens to 

 be that minute transcript of nature midway between 

 the Dell and Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes 

 and aquatic grasses flourishes in the stagnant pool 

 forming the end of the Serpentine. Where they 

 pass the winter — ^in what Mentone or Madeira of 

 the ralline race — ^is not known. There is a pretty 

 story, which circulated throughout Europe a httle 

 over fifty years ago, of a Polish gentleman cap- 

 turing a stork that built its nest on his roof every 

 summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck 

 with the inscription, " Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." 

 The following summer it reappeared with some- 

 thing which shone very brightly on its neck, and 

 when the stork was taken again this was found to be 

 a collar of gold, with which the iron collar had been 

 replaced, and on it were graven the words, " India 

 cum donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person 

 has yet put an iron collar on the moor-hen to receive 

 gifts in return, or followed its feeble fluttering flight 

 to discover the limit of its migration which is prob- 

 ably no further away than the Kentish marshes and 

 other wet sheltered spots in the south of England ; 

 that it leaves the country when it quits the park is 

 not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave, 

 and with the wave returns j and, like the migratory 

 birds that observe times and seasons, it comes 



