g in places. Part of the journey must have been
done on dry land.

At the same moment that I startled this brood out of the rushes a
moorhen swam slowly out, accompanied by her mate. It was evident, from
her cries and her anxious behaviour, that she too had some young ones in
the rushes; and soon two tiny little black balls of fur crawled out from
the bank and made for the opposite shore. Either from blindness or
fright they did not join their parents in mid stream, but hurried across
to the opposite bank and scrambled on to the mud, followed by the old
couple remonstrating with them on their foolishness. The mother then
succeeded in persuading one of them to follow her to a place of safety
underneath some overhanging boughs, but the other was left clinging to
the bank, crying piteously. I went round by a bridge in the hope of
being able to place the helpless little thing on the water; but, alas!
by the time I got to the spot it was dead. The exertion of crossing the
stream had been too much for it, for it was probably not twelve
hours old.

When there are young ones about, moorhens will not dive to get out of
your sight unless their children dive too. It is pretty to see them
swimming on the down-stream side of their progeny, buoying them up in
case the current should prove too strong and carry them down. If there
are eggs still unhatched, the father, when disturbed, takes the little
ones away to a safer spot, whilst the mother sticks to the nest. But
they are rather stupid, for even the day after the eggs are hatched, on
being disturbed by a casual passer-by, the old cock swims out into mid
stream. He then calls to his tiny progeny to follow him, though they are
utterly incapable of doing so, and generally come to hopeless grief in
the attempt. Then the old ones are not very clever at finding children
that have been frightened away from the nest. I marked one down on the
opposite bank, and could see it crawling beneath some sticks; but the
old bird kept swimming past the spot, and appeared to neither hear nor
see the little ball of fur. Perhaps he was playing cunning; he may have
imagined that the bird was invisible to me, and was trying to divert my
attention from the spot.

Moorhens are always interesting to watch. With a pair of field-glasses
an amusing and instructive half hour may often be spent by the stream in
the breeding season.

I was much amused, while feeding some swans and a couple of wild ducks
the