THE WATERHEN OR MOORHEN.
have a very anxious time of it, for the Heron is on the look-out for them, and he does a lot of wading in the reeds and the swamps all the time the young Moorhens are about. They would be far more numerous were they not hunted for, so persistently, by furred, finned, and feathered prowlers.
The Pike is one of their worst enemies, and the youngsters are kept often in about three inches of water to escape his murderous bite.
“The Moorhen can both swim and dive, and he flies well when fairly on the wing; but as his real flights take place, as a rule, at night, very little is known about them. I once saw a flight at daybreak that very much astonished me. The bird shifts considerably about at night at times. When alarmed it is occasionally very clever in concealing itself, and it will sham death to perfection, even when caught alive by a good dog, without a feather being injured.”
The Waterhen is rather larger than the Partridge; it has longer legs, of a green colour, and much longer toes. It has a small growth on the wings like a spur. On the brow is a bare crescent-shaped red patch, the pupil of the eye is carmine; neck and the whole of the mantle dark, greenish-olive brown; the other parts of the body slate colour, the inside of the lower tail-cover being of a darker shade, with a broad yellowish white border. The feathers on the edge of the wings are tipped with white, forming a beautiful white line, to the front of the wings. The bill is green, red at the base. The nest is nearly always placed in dry sedge-bushes on the edge of the water; the dry grass serves for litter. The clutch consists of ten eggs, which have a pale yellowish red ground speckled with violet and reddish-brown.