e shadows of the
alders, caught the scent of the moorhens, and approached the nest where
the female was brooding over her eggs. The bird had watched the fox's
movements since first he appeared on the bank beyond the trees. Quietly
she dropped into the pond beside the nest, dived, came up on the far
side of the islet, and stayed there, with only her head above the
surface of the water. She saw, with fear, the fox approach her nest, and
recognised that it was hardly possible for her treasures to be saved,
when, suddenly, her mate, having doubtless watched the marauder as
closely as she herself had done, walked out of a reed-clump two or three
yards from her hiding place, and, in full view of the fox, swam slowly
to and fro, beating his wings as if in mortal pain. Without the
slightest hesitation, Reynard, thinking to obtain an easy prize, plunged
into the pond, but the bird just managed to elude him, and to flutter
into another reed-clump a short distance away. Completely deceived by
the ruse, the fox was drawn further and further from the nest, till he
reached a distant corner of the pond, when, to his astonishment, the
moorhen vanished, leaving him to a vain search which at last so much
annoyed him that, instead of returning along the bank towards the nest,
he crossed the glen, trotted up the cattle-path, and entered the dense
thicket on the slope.

With most wild creatures, fear seems to be a feeling that quickly comes
and quickly goes. But over some of Nature's weaklings, fear seems to
throw a spell that remains long after the danger has passed; as, for
instance, in the case of a rabbit hunted by a stoat, or of a vole
pursued by a weasel. The animal trembles with fright, cries as if in
pain, and limps, half-paralysed, towards its home, some time after its
pursuer may have turned aside to follow a line of scent leading in a
quite opposite direction. Now and then, a young rabbit is so overcome by
fright, that the sly, watchful carrion crow obtains, with little
trouble, an unexpected meal. The birds of the hedgerow--finches, robins,
and the like--are also subject to the distressing influence of fear,
directly they catch sight of a hungry weasel "performing" in the ditch.
When the weasel sets itself to lure any such creatures, its movements
are remarkably similar to the contortions of a snake; and the birds,
fascinated as their enemy's strange actions are rapidly repeated,
flutter helplessly from spray to spray, till one