FIELD NOTES. 381 



Three more Moorhens come, at intervals after this, to the bank, 

 and bathe in the same way, just off it, standing in a few inches 

 of water. Not one of them has bathed right in the water, like a 

 Duck, and this, I think, if it is habitual, is an interesting trait, 

 for surely it looks back to a time when the bird was not so 

 aquatic as it is now — when it was more a wader and less a 

 swimmer. It would then have feared to bathe out of its depth, 

 and, though it has no need to fear it now, yet the old habit 

 remains. Probably the last things to change in a gradual 

 change of life would be those which were least affected by such 

 a change. Bathing has nothing to do with the getting of food, 

 or with sexual activities — with hunger or with love — and as 

 long as the water-bird did not get a long way from the land, it 

 might be almost as conveniently performed on the one element 

 as the other. Not quite, however, and therefore, as the course 

 of life became more and more aquatic, this and almost every 

 other habit would, at last, become modified. Now the Coot very 

 closely resembles the Moorhen, but it is fin-footed, it dives 

 better and far more habitually, and it bathes afloat on the water. 

 In all this we can see a longer course of weaning from terrestrial 

 life than the latter bird has undergone. 



I counted to-day twenty-five Moorhens — as a minimum — 

 browsing together — sometimes close together — over the meadow- 

 land. There were frequent panics, when either all or consider- 

 able numbers of them would fly to the water, beginning to come 

 again, sometimes, almost as soon as they had got there. It was 

 very interesting to see how some birds, after looking all about, 

 prepared, at any moment, to follow their companions, would yet 

 resist this impulse to flight, concluding, evidently, that there was 

 no real ground of alarm. Here we have individuality and character 

 showing themselves more in some birds than in others. Once the 

 whole flock were put up by a Heron, who, however, only came 

 sailing leisurely by, and went down not far off; and again by 

 some other bird that I missed, and whose hoarse cry in the air 

 I did not recognize. 



Squirrels about in the pine-plantations to-day. " Quobba- 

 wobba-wobba-wobba " is the class of remark they indulge in. 

 It is much milder to-day, certainly, but, having seen them run- 

 ning over snow, in the hardest weather, I doubt if this has much 

 to do with it. They were about on the 12th, for instance. 



