WATER-RAIL. 405 
“ Annals of Natural History” for 1839 (vol. ii., p. 78) 
is the following description of a nest of this species 
taken by Mr. John Smith, in the summer of that 
year, in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth, but the exact 
spot is not stated :—“‘The bird had selected for her 
nest a thick tuft of long grass, hollow at the bottom, on 
the side of the reed pond; the nest, about an inch and 
a half thick, was composed of willow leaves and rushes ; 
it was so covered by the top of the grass, that neither 
bird, nest, or eggs, could be seen; the entrance to and 
from the nest was through an aperture of the grass, 
directly into the reeds, opposite to where any one could 
stand to see the nest.” After minutely describing 
the appearance of the eggs, which, being now pretty 
generally known, it is here unnecessary to repeat, the 
same writer remarks :—‘ On the 20th of June I found 
another nest in the same reed-pond; the eggs were 
destroyed ; this nest was built amongst the reeds and 
very near the water. On the 10th of July I obtained 
a third nest from the same place, of eleven eggs, within 
two or three days of hatching, the nest and structure 
much like the first.” 
Two eggs in my own collection were taken with others 
by the Rev. W. 8. Hore, on Horsey Mere, in the summer 
of 1850; and I have occasionally known them offered 
for sale in our market, with those of water-hens, coots, 
and grebes. Mr. A. Newton informs me that on the 
15th of May, 1853, a nest with nine eggs was found at 
Downham, close to the river which there divides this 
county from Suffolk, and that on the 8th of June in the 
same year a nest with six eggs was found in Feltwell Fen 
in Norfolk. I have also two eggs of this species from 
the neighbourhood of Diss, which were taken in 1860 
during the first week in June, from a nest which 
~ contained nine; and in 1862, about the first week 
in May, three nests were found at Upton, near Acle, 
containing six, seven, and eight eggs respectively. 
