258 BIRDS. 



bill and the red mark on the leg, which is otherwise green- 

 ish. These birds frequent certain waters in numbers, and 



on a short stretch of the Cray in North Kent 

 Moorhen. ^ , , . • i , l • j. 



I took SIX or eight nests m two successive years. 



The birds were by no means shy, being little persecuted, 

 though they were made less welcome at the trout-hatchery 

 close by. It is a good deal molested on account of its 

 supposed destruction of young trout and game-birds. I 

 do not, from what I have been able to observe, believe 

 in the damage done in this respect, though I have more 

 than once detected it, on a certain private water that shall 

 be nameless, feeding, as I believe, on trout-ova. I could 

 plainly see it with the aid of my glasses feeding on some- 

 thing very like spawn ; and I admit in all contrition that, 

 having been refused permission to fish the water not long 

 before, I did not feel called upon to warn the owner of the 

 presence of poachers. The swimming and diving of this 

 bird are, considering that the feet are not webbed — differ- 

 ing from those of the landrails only in their narrow mar- 

 ginal membrane — marvellous, nor is it by any means so 

 poor on the wing as some writers make out. It dives at 

 the flash of the gun, and, like some other waterfowl, has 

 a knack of remaining submerged all but the bill. The 

 moorhen is very susceptible to cold, and in the severe 

 winter of 1886 I picked up several birds that had 

 obviously died of the cold. 



In addition to the aforementioned trout-ova, which are 

 available for a short space only, the bird consumes 

 quantities of insects and grain. The nest is of flags and 

 sedges, and is placed low down by the water, sometimes 

 floating, at others partly submerged, and the bird is said 

 to resort to ingenious methods of keeping both nest and 

 contents dry in flood-time. It is also known to nest in 

 trees at some height above the water, and I have found its 

 nest in the dry bracken a couple of hundred yards from the 

 water's edge. Eggs^ 6 to 9, if inch ; brownish white, 

 speckled with red. 



