218 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
to the other chick, somewhere else. But this explanation is 
hardly satisfactory, for, why then with such ample time, 
should both chicks have not been removed? ‘These small 
pools in the peat or turf are so open, and the young chicks 
so unaccustomed to hide themselves, after the manner of 
Moorhens, when frightened, that, if not seen before long, their 
absence from the pool may be assumed. Fear would only be 
shown by their keeping as far off as the size of the pool allowed. 
One could not well miss them in such a place for long. 
My reason for going to the pool was to see if there was a nest 
upon its banks, and contrary to my expectations, for I had not 
before seen any birds here, I found not one merely, but two un- 
mistakable ones, whether this or last year’s I cannot say, but the 
moss that had been laid down, and once, no doubt, formed a thin 
layer, had now become scanty wet tufts, distributed sparsely, like 
the kinks of a Hottentot’s hair. Both these nests were very near 
the edge of the water; one was on a little turfy projection of 
the bank—almost an island—and had the peculiarity of there 
being two well-marked slides, from it to the water upon either 
side of the peninsula, each of which, from their appearance, 
must have been equally made use of by the birds. It would 
have been interesting to see whether the two were used in- 
differently, either in leaving or getting on to the nest, or whether 
the bird always ascended by one and came off by the other. 
Owing to the tendency of constantly repeated actions to become 
uniform, and pass into a sort of routine—as with ourselves—I 
have little doubt, myself, that this latter was the case. The two 
nests were only a few paces apart. I could not, however, though 
I walked several times round the pool, find anything like a de- 
pression where the old bird had sat with the chicks, and so, as 
these places are almost, if not quite, as conspicuous as the nests 
themselves, I feel sure that there was none. 
It would seem, prima facie, that one or other of these nests 
had been the birthplace of the pair of chicks now on this pool ; 
yet the fact remains that two young birds are gone from the 
pool where I most certainly saw them—it being a very dis- 
tinctive one, with peculiar and unmistakable features—whilst 
two, that I had not noticed before, on another one (this, namely) 
so near to it that, had they been there, I could hardly have 
