WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
upon the refuge-nest, the rats could not reach 
them, but the parents knew if one strayed by 
himself under the bank that he would never 
come out again. 
Life is a bold adventure to the moorhens on 
these outlying pools. The riverside moorhen 
can generally baffle his enemies by putting the 
stream between himself and them ; but on 
small pieces of water the hunters soon learn 
this trick, and harry him up and down until he 
is tired and bewildered and drops into their 
jaws. These pond-dwellers are the pioneers of 
their kind. At the end of every season there 
are deserted pools with perhaps only a few 
feathers scattered on the bank to tell of what 
had befallen the late inhabitants. But their 
numbers are constantly recruited from the 
surplus population of the riverside, where 
under happier conditions the mortality is less, 
and the risk of overcrowding greater. 
At present the chicks' best safeguard was the 
thick crowfoot tangle which choked the Pool, 
for the floating stems would not bear the rat's 
weight and were matted too thickly for any 
creature to swim through them. The moor- 
hens by constantly paddling to and fro had 
carved certain narrow channels in the weed ; 
and when they went out to feed, the parents 
were obliged to coast down these fixed water- 
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