In one hedge an opening leads to a drinking-place for cattle: peering noiselessly over the parapet between the boughs, the coots and moorhens may be seen there feeding by the shore.
The moorhens dive, and the coots scuttle down the brook towards the mere at the flash.
The marsh is left to the coots and moorhens that from thence stock the brooks.
But it happened one day when one of these moorhens was swimming in a pool on a Yorkshire stream, that a puppy came barking down the bank and made an awkward feint towards the young bird.
Intelligence co-operating with Instinct Professor Lloyd Morgan was foster-parent to two moorhens which grew up in isolation from their kindred.
I have seen moorhens do so in the meadows, and they then spread out their wings, to support themselves on the ground, just as they do in the water.
Moorhens have special bathing-places, to which one may see several come, one after the other.
Moorhens are pugnacious birds, even in the winter.
Young moorhens are almost, if not quite, as precocious as chickens.
Moorhens fight in just the same manner as coots, and seeing what a very curious and uncommon-looking manner this is, it might be thought that it was specially adapted to the aquatic habits of the two species.
Do moorhens do anything analogous to this, anything that might in time grow into it, or into something like it?
Besides the one which I have mentioned, young moorhens make a little shrilly sound that has something, almost, of a cackle in it.
It is a pretty thing to see a pair of moorhens building.
Though so precocious, yet the young moorhens are, for some time, fed by their dams.
Sometimes they approached the shore and saw several empty nests of moorhens and coots, but just above the level of the water.
Mark had watched till two moorhens were near enough together, one he shot outright and Pan caught the other.
It was made of rushes, twined round like a wreath, or perhaps more like a large green turban, and there were three or four young moorhens in it.
But there are no cats on the island, and, besides, cats would not take bacon when there were the two moorhens on the shelf.
No; Pan would have had the moorhens too, if it had been him.
When Bevis had entered the launching of the raft and the voyage to Serendib in the journal, they skinned the moorhens and prepared them for cooking.
Just at the edge of the water the moorhens leave footprints.
It was some time before they could get the excited spaniel on board; so soon as they could, Bevis poled the raft along to Bamboo Island, where several coots and moorhens had taken refuge.
The moorhens did not appear again, so they went back and sat on the top of the steep bank, their legs dangling over the edge above the bubbling water.
The moorhens and coots had now recovered from the fright Pan had given them.
He could see all over that part of the lake, and noticed two moorhens feeding in the weeds on the other side, when puff!
But by the time Mark had got there the little moorhens had hidden in the grasses beside the stream, though one swam out for a minute, and then concealed itself again.
This happened, two moorhens came rushing out, one flew, the other swam as hastily as he could, and Mark shot the latter.
When there are young ones about, moorhens will not dive to get out of your sight unless their children dive too.
They love water-rats and moorhens more than any other food.
Here he loved to dwell, and huntmoorhens and dabchicks and water-rats all night long by the banks of silvery Coln.
Among the flags and the rushes of the pond, a pair of fussy moorhens built their nest on an islet of decayed vegetation clustered round a stone.
The water-voles and the moorhens were unusually alert as they swam hither and thither in the little bays along the edge of the current.
The thrushes have not forgotten the frost of the morning, and will not sing at noon; the summer visitors have flown and the moorhens feed quietly.
Among flags and weeds the moorhens feed fearlessly as we roll over the stream: then comes a cutting, and more heath and hawkweed, harebell, and bramble bushes red with unripe berries.
Just below the shadow of the beech there is a sandy, oozy shore, where the footprints of moorhens are often traceable.
By still ponds, to which the moorhens have now returned, tall spikes of purple loosestrife rise in bunches.
Down the current sedges grew thickly at a curve: up the stream the young flags were rising; it had an inhabited look, if such a term may be used, and moorhens and water-rats were about but no fish.
Moorhens evidently migrate up or down the river in spring and autumn, and occasionally dabchicks; otherwise their sudden appearance and disappearance on the eyot could not be accounted for.
Mallard, teal, dabchicks, and moorhens breed there regularly, and in hard weather a number of rarer birds drop in.
The barge went on, turning up the mud in the shallow water, sending ripples washing up to the grassy meadow shores, while the moorhens hid in the flags till it was gone.
Moorhens and coots are especially disliked because they are on or near the water day and night, and can clear off large quantities of fry.
The Thames is too long and wide for complete exclusion; but it is surprising how few moorhenseven are to be seen along the river.
The calls of moorhens came up from a lake in a deep valley near, beeches grow down the steep slope to the edge of the water, and the wind which rippled it drew in a strong draught up the hill.
Hardly a wild-duck is now seen; one or two moorhens or a dabchick seem all.
We have more than once shot moorhens in autumn with spawn dripping from their bills, and the birds themselves gorged with it.
In a quiet pool known to us, a couple of moorhenshave annually hatched and reared one or more broods under the shadow of an old thorn-tree, the nest being interwoven with one of the lower boughs which floats on the surface of the water.
On this same ground moorhens and other shy aquatic birds make their home in bush and sedge, from time to time crossing the open grass, evidently aware of their safety, but taking little interest in the lookers-on.
There was colour even about the still pool, where the weeds grew so thickly that the moorhens could scarcely swim through them.
Winding in and out like an Indian in his canoe, perhaps traces of an otter might be found--his kitchen modding--and in the sedges moorhens and wildfowl would hide from me.
A fewmoorhens creep under the aquatic grasses and conceal themselves beneath the bushes, water-voles hide among the flags, but the once extensive host of waterfowl and river life has been reduced to the smallest limits.
I have shot at these great rascals when they have been swimming fifty yards from shore, and I strongly suspect them of visiting the nests of moorhens and other waterfowl with felonious purposes.
The moorhens cannot get at the water; neither can the herons or kingfishers.
Moorhens are fond of bridges and frequently feed under them.
I have seen coots, and moorhens too, venture some distance up the dark arch of a culvert.
Coot and moorhens paddle in and out of the reeds, and great grebes float leisurely about its surface.
You can count thirty or forty coots, besides moorhens and a dozen dabchicks or so, and at the end where the mill stands there are fat duck and a bevy of swans.
The moorhensformerly disappeared from London in winter; they are now residents throughout the year in a few of the parks where there is shelter, and during severe frosts they feed at the same table with the ornamental water-fowl.
They are drawn thither by the birds--the multitude of sparrows that gather to be fed, and the wood-pigeons, and a few moorhens that live in the rushes.
At its narrow end it has a small bed of bulrushes, which has been inhabited by a pair of moorhens for several years past.
A pair of moorhens took it into their fantastic little heads to build their nest against a piece of wire-netting stretched across the lake at one point.
Coots hatched and reared by the moorhens would give us another wild bird well suited to thrive in the park lakes; and I will venture to add that we might even get the great crested grebe, by placing its eggs in the dabchicks' nests.
At the sudden movement a pike struck, and two moorhens scuttled out of the water into the grass on the shore.
Three moorhens were also caught; a fourth was only held by its claw in the gin; this one, not being in the least injured, he let go again.
The sedges, into which two or three moorhens had retired at my approach, were still, and the leaves on the boughs overhanging the water were motionless.
The moorhens were fond of this pond because it was surrounded with a great quantity of rushes; they were numerous all up the brook.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "moorhens" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
