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In the Vale of White Horse they seem to take most of the early wild pheasant's eggs, besides stealing hen's eggs from round the farms. They are particularly fond of hunting down the sides of streams and canals in the early morning, where they find three dainties to which they are particularly partial, moorhen's eggs, frogs, and fresh-water mussels.
I could write a whole history of it; the time when the leaves were fresh and green, and the sedge-birds frequented it; the time when the moorhen's young crept after their mother through its recesses; from the singing of the cuckoo by the river, till now brown and yellow leaves strew the water.
And the charming discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's indolence, and the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a new picture. How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were the comfortable barns.
It's got a white shield on the top of its head, and the moorhen's got a red one like sealing-wax. Hi! look at that!" For all of a sudden there was a rush and splash close to the reeds, and the moorhen and five young ones went through the water with a dash to hide among the reeds. "Know what that was?" "They saw us, and were frightened. Or did some one throw a big stone?"
A moorhen's call comes from the hatch. Broad yellow petals of marsh-marigold stand up high among the sedges rising from the greyish-green ground, which is covered with a film of sun-dried aquatic grass left dry by the retiring waters. Here and there are lilac-tinted cuckoo-flowers, drawn up on taller stalks than those that grow in the meadows.
Phillida and Noreen noticed a moorhen's nest built on an overhanging bough that swept the lake, and saw four tiny downy creatures swimming away very fast to take cover; Ursula found a specimen of the Truelove-knot, and triumphed immensely, partly on botanical grounds and partly because she regarded it as an omen of early matrimony, though needless to say this latter aspect of her rejoicing was not communicated to Miss Walters, only chuckled over in private with her intimate friends.
They swallow the frogs in situ, and carry the moorhen's eggs and mussels off to some adjacent post to eat them comfortably. The shells of both eggs and mussels litter the ground under these dinner-tables.
I didn't know it grew in our river. 'There is plenty of it in that reedy place beyond the turn. I thought it looked like something out of the common way. 'Yes! What a purple eye it has! I must draw it. O, thank you. 'And, Charlotte, Bustle has found you a moorhen's nest. 'How delightful! Is it where I can go and see the dear little things?
Even now there is a narrow stream unfrozen; though the banks against which it chafes are hard, and will not take the impression of the moorhen's foot. The water-rats that in summertime played and fed along the margin among the flags are rarely seen in winter. In walking in daylight by the brook now their plunge into the water will not be heard, nor can they be seen travelling at the bottom.
But he would never, never be able to get that quaint pretty carriage. The "Buzzard lope" and the crane's stately stride are imitable by man, but not the moorhen's gait. And what a mess of it our young gentleman would make in attempting at each step to throw up his coat tails in order to display conspicuously the white silk underlining!
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