RALLID.t. 



517 



THE MOOR-HEN. 



Gallinula chloropus (Linnaeus). 



This familiar species, also known as the Water-hen, is generally 

 distributed throughout the British Islands, and is, as a rule, stationary ; 

 though a partial migration takes place in winter from the northern 

 districts where the cold weather is severe and continuous. Else- 

 where the Moor-hen manages to exist very well during frosts, resorting 

 to running streams when ponds are frozen over, and finding shelter 

 in plantations, hedge-rows and thick bushes. Its trivial name had 

 its origin at the time when ' moor ' was equivalent to mire or 

 ' marsh.' 



As a wanderer the Moor-hen has occurred in the Fteroes and the 

 south of Iceland ; but in Scandinavia it only breeds sparingly up to 

 lat. 63°, while in Russia it seldom nests as far north as St. Petersburg. 

 Throughout the rest of Europe it is more or less common in suitable 

 localities, and is resident in the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores, 

 as well as in Africa north of the Sahara ; its numbers in the last being 

 reinforced by migrants from the north in winter. Southward it can 

 be traced along both sides of that continent to Cape Colony, but 

 birds found in Madagascar, Reunion and the Seychelles are some- 

 what different, while a remarkable island-species, G. nestotis, is found 

 in the Tristan da Cunha group. From Ceylon and the Philippines 

 northward our Moor-hen is resident in Asia up to the main island of 

 Japan, and it breeds as far north as Lake Baikal in Siberia. A closely- 



