404 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



RALLUS AQUATICUS, LinBteus. 

 WATEE-EAIL. 



The common Water-Rail* is both a resident and 

 migratory species in Norfolk, the birds which remain 

 with us throughout the winter receiving considerable 

 accessions to their numbers in March and April; and 

 though a large portion of those bred in our marshes pass 

 southward again at the close of the breeding season, 

 migratory flights from the north are met with at intervals 

 in autumn and winter. In support of this view of the 

 habits of a bird not easy of observation at any season, 

 I may state that between the middle of March and the 

 first or second week in April, it is customary to find several 

 couples of rails in the Norwich market, hanging for sale 

 with the snipes that simultaneously make their appear- 

 ance in our marshes. From that time until the close of 

 the breeding season they are pretty generally dispersed 

 over the county wherever moist localities afford sufficient 

 harbour ; and though, of course, most abundant on the 

 Broads themselves, are known, either by their cries 

 or the chance discovery of their eggs and young, to fre- 

 quent the margins of our inland Meres, wet commons, 

 and even rough sedgy watercourses. That their nests 

 should be but rarely found on our larger Broads, can 

 be no matter of surprise to those acquainted with their 

 haunts in such localities, but in this county, at least, 

 their eggs are by no means of such rarity as might be 

 inferred by Yarrell's remark that he *^ never possessed 

 but two — one from Norfolk and one from Cambridgeshire 

 — and never saw more than three or four more." In the 



* I know of no provincial name for this species in Norfolk 

 besides that of rail, but in Halliwell's " Dictionary of Provincial 

 Names," &c., the term " Bidcock " is applied to the water-rail, with 

 Drayton as the authority. 



