^54 



BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



and sleep in holes in the river-walls ; but they are never 

 safe anywhere, for the hungry crows, and buzzards, and 

 hawks, and stoats find them out, and " trim them out 

 properly," as the gunners say. Yet they are most friendly 

 to men if undisturbed, and I know a painter who used 

 to feed a water-rail regularly every morning wdth bread- 

 crumbs, the confiding bird coming from the stuff" on to 

 the rond to feed amongst the robins, whom the bird after- 

 wards chased away. 



And he is good to eat himself — in a dumpling, or curried, 

 he is a splendid fellow; and it is a matter for regret that the 

 hard winter of 1 890-91 was the cause of frightful mortality 

 amongst those birds — the vermin "cleared them up," and 

 in the spring after that Arctic winter a rail's nest was as 

 rare as a spotted-rail's had hitherto been. Never was such 

 scarcity of rails known in any of their favourite haunts. I 

 believe the water-rail will one day be as rare in the Broads 

 district as is the spotted-rail to-day. 



water-rail's nest and young {in situ). 



