MOOR-HEN,—-WATER-HEN. ALI 
GALLINULA CHLOROPUS (Linneus). 
MOOR-HEN,—WATER-HEN. 
Abundant as is this familiar and most interesting 
species throughout the kingdom, it is perhaps no- 
where so numerous or so generally dispersed as in 
Norfolk. Not only in its main strongholds, on the 
Broads and Meres, does it find the needful shelter of 
reeds and rushes, but the deep sedgy ronds of our 
sluggish rivers, extending for miles on either bank, 
are a constant resort in summer, and wherever, as is 
peculiarly the case in the vicinity of Norwich, some 
smaller streams winding their tortuous course through 
the low meadows, abound in alder and osier carrs, 
reed-beds, and islands of tangled brushwood, water-hens 
may be met with at all seasons, and, though thinned 
by the sportsman or an unusually severe winter, will 
soon recover their former abundance. Nearer still 
to the habitations of man, this bird, with its strange 
mixture of shyness and sociability, frequents the reedy 
margins of our inland lakes and other ornamental waters, 
however limited in extent, provided only there is suff- 
cient harbour—some sheltering nook of rank aquatic 
herbage and a surface coated with weeds and floating 
plants. The ancient moat half choked with vegetation, 
the home pond, or pit-hole in the fields, and even, at 
times, the centre of a plantation at a distance from 
water, will form the home of these versatile creatures, 
which, adapting their habits to circumstances, will roost 
as readily in a tree, shrub, or fence, as amidst reeds and 
rushes. The busy sound of a water mill, or foundry, or 
the noisy traffic of a railroad skirting their haunts, fails 
to disturb their equanimity, for as the train rushes past 
we catch sight of them for an instant from the carriage 
window, quietly picking about in an adjoining ditch. 
3G 2 
