404. BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
RALLUS AQUATICUS, Linnzus. 
WATER-RAIL. 
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. 
