THE MOORHEN. 
825 
long time which used to run about the garden, and 
feed with the fowls; and my father knew one which 
came of its own accord into the yard at the rectory, in 
the village of Langendembach, where it ran about with 
the other fowls, and returned to its pond again; after a 
time, indeed, it learned to know the call which summoned 
the chickens to be fed, whose example it immediately 
followed. 
I have before stated that the Moorhen probably does 
most of its travelling on foot, following the courses of the 
rivers, a fact which makes it all the more wonderful how 
far they manage to prosecute their journey. I have shot 
Moorhens at water-holes in the forests of Central Africa; 
others have met with it in Senegal, Newfoundland, on 
the Society Islands, &c. How they ever reached these 
places is incomprehensible. 
It is a sad pity that the Moorhens, which frequent the 
neighbourhood of our ponds and lakes, should be perse¬ 
cuted as they are, and preposterous and ridiculous that 
people should go so far as to regard them as destructive 
to fish. The food of the Moorhen consists exclusively of 
seeds and the tender green shoots of water-plants, insects, 
and aquatic worms; never of fish. This bird cannot be 
otherwise than useful to us. It is not worth anything 
for the table, as its flesh is tasteless; thus there is no 
just reason why it should be destroyed. 
