By Pond and River (Yesterday's Classics) by Buckley Arabella B

Author:Buckley, Arabella B. [Buckley, Arabella B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nature
ISBN: 9781599152721
Publisher: Yesterday's Classics
Published: 2010-11-08T14:02:00.828000+00:00

The Water-Hen and the Coot

IF your way to school lies along a river-path, where trees hang over the water, you will very likely have seen a water-hen and her little ones. Perhaps you may know where a nest is, either among the rushes, or on a bough of a tree overhanging the water.

It is made of dead rushes, and though it is quite close to the water, it is dry and warm. If you are bathing you may look in. You will find about eight pale-grey eggs spotted with red-brown patches. Or perhaps some of the eggs may be hatched, and then the young birds will be hidden with their mother in the rushes. They are little black balls of fluff with red on their heads and white tail-feathers, and they can run and swim directly they are born. All the time you are looking, the mother, hidden in the rushes, will cry "Crr-ook, crr-ook" to drive you away.

She is a black bird, about as big as a pigeon, with a bright red forehead and yellow beak. And she has white feathers on the edge of her wings and under her tail. When she is in the water, she keeps jerking her head down, so that you see the white feathers, and even her green legs with their red garters.

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