94 BIBDS IN LONDON 



Next to the ringdove in importance — and a 

 bird of a more fascinating personality, if such a 

 word be admissible— is the moorhen, pretty 

 and quaint in its silky olive-brown and slaty- 

 grey dress, with oblique white bar on its side, 

 and white undertail, yellow and scarlet beak 

 and frontal shield, and large green legs. Green- 

 legged little hen is its scientific name. Its motions, 

 too, are pretty and quaint. Not without a 

 smile can we see it going about on the smooth 

 turf with an air of dignity incongruous in so 

 small a bird, lifting up and setting down its feet 

 with all the deliberation of a crane or bustard. 

 A hundred curious facts have been recorded of 

 this familiar species — the ' moat-hen ' of old 

 troubled days when the fighting man, instead of 

 the schoolmaster as now, was abroad in England, 

 and manor-houses were surrounded by moats, in 

 which the moorhen lived, close to human beings, 

 in a semi-domestic state. But after all that has 

 been written, we no sooner have him near us, 

 under our eyes, as in London to-day, than we 

 note some new trait or pretty trick. Thus, in 

 a pond in West London I saw a moorhen act in 

 a manner which, so far as I know, had never 

 been described ; and I must confess that if some 



