420 BIRDS OF NOErOLK. 



broad, and when its pace indicates the same latent 

 powers possessed in no small degree by oiu* migratory 

 rails, incapable though they appear under ordinary 

 circumstances of sustained exertion on the wing. The 

 voluntary nocturnal flight"^ of this species also in sum- 

 mer, when its peculiar cry strikes upon the ear as it 

 circles round and round over its marshy haunts, is in 

 like manner in direct contrast to its ordinary habits 

 by day. 



Of the numbers bred annually on the broads them- 

 selves it is impossible to form any conception fi-om the 

 few which may be seen here and there in the day time ; 

 it is only in the dusk of a summer's evening, when they 

 steal from their hiding places, and are either dimly 

 seen, threading their way against a dark background of 

 sedges, or clearly defined for an instant as they pass 

 from shadow to shadow, through the last gleam of 

 daylight on the water, that any approximate idea can 

 be formed. At night, also, their presence is indicated, 

 on all sides, by their loud notes and constant splashings 

 and rustlings as they play amongst the reeds. 



Whilst the coots when fairly frozen out on the broads, 

 quit their summer haunts, to a bird, for the coast and 

 its saltmarshes, the water-hens, as Mr. Lubbock remarks, 

 ^^ either not having inclination or ability to migrate, 

 are terribly cut up." Many, it is true, betake them- 

 selves to the adjoining fields and stack-yards, but others 

 still remain till every pool is frozen over, when starved 

 alike with cold and hunger they fall victims in their 

 enfeebled state to the carnivorous tastes of the grey 

 crows and four-footed vermin. Though scarcely to be 

 termed gregarious at any other time, they collect 



* Messrs. A. and H. Matthews, in the "Zoologist" for 1849 

 (p. 2432) drew attention, from their own observations, to this habit 

 of the water-hen, which has been rarely noticed by authors though 

 mentioned by Gould in his " Birds of Great Britahi." 



