FIELD NOTES. 373 



then becomes suspicious too, and retires in the same way. Beyond 

 these two, and further inland, another one, after browsing a little, 

 sits on the snow-decked grass, seeming to nestle there and make 

 himself warm and comfortable. Rising then, he comes forward 

 with a very peculiar gait- — a sort of mincing half trot — lifting the 

 feet up very high, and with great " springiness." This curious 

 motion, which seems to imitate that of a high-actioned horse, I 

 have not observed before — at least, I do not remember it — in our 

 own Moorhen ; but I think I have remarked it, even in a more 

 developed degree, in one of the Gallinules in the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens. But this may be a mere dream (the Gardens 

 is a nightmare), one of those odd sensations of having seen a 

 thing before, as though in another world. But whatever I may 

 have seen once, I certainly see this Moorhen now, and so 

 strangely does he look, that I think, at first, he must have hurt 

 one or both of his feet. Now he sits down again, then rises and 

 advances in the same way, till he enters the water just opposite 

 me. Here he becomes suspicious, and swims fast away, with his 

 tail flirted vigorously at each paddle. Then, again landing, he 

 runs at a great pace, looking about half his former size — proving, 

 if proof were needed, that his feet and legs are perfectly right. 



Whilst watching the Moorhens, a Robin flies on to some 

 water-weeds that lie upon the stream, and thence to the trunk 

 of an alder-tree, where, for a second or two, he clings. It is 

 easy to see how the tree-creeping habit may have originated. 

 Most small, perching birds do occasionally — and some of them 

 by no means clumsily — what the Tree-Creeper does always, and 

 from tree-creeping — though not from the Tree-Creeper — the 

 Woodpeckers have probably come into being. 



A Dabchick comes up on the water now, but dives down again, 

 as it were, before he comes up, a splash of water being all that I 

 can see — the bird invisible. And now two of these little birds 

 are sporting and ducking about in the water together, uttering 

 from time to time a shrill, quavering note that sounds like — or 

 something like — " queek, queek, queek, queek — queek, queek, 

 queek, queek." "'Queek,' pas 'whit,' Monsieur Fleurant. 

 'Whit'! Ah, Monsieur Fleurant, c'est se moquer. Mettez, 

 mettez ' queek,' s'il vous plait." They come along, these little 

 queekers, till they are only about three— at last, perhaps, only 



