The cock's selection of material is as rough almost as
the mechanics of his building. The heap consists of dead leaves, mostly of ash and bramble, of green shoots of the bluebell and of dried sticks, all heaped together anyhow. Yet, perhaps there is method, for the green appears to be cunningly dis- persed among the brown, as a French maraieher compounds his new and old manure to the end of achieving an exact degree of heat. The hen has already laid her eggs. She likes, appar- ently, some six or seven inches of bedding for them, and leaves, wholly to the cock the art of adding the right superstructure in material and weight. She has nothing more to do, yet a sort of broodiness comes over her; she squats lethargically under brambles while the cock works away with gusto at his heap and drives off all trespassers to his pitch, if they be not too good for him. At Whipsnade the only intruder he fears to tackle is a white peacock or two.
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