414 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
the copse; the keeper supposing that it only came to 
eat the young pheasants’ food, did not shoot it until he 
saw the moorhen strike a pheasant, which it killed 
immediately, and devoured all the young bird except the 
leo and wing bones.* The remains agreed exactly with 
those of eight found before.” 
Though sombre in its general colouring, and prone 
to concealment on the least intrusion upon its haunts, 
the water-hen, whether in its natural element or trav- 
ersing with its long wide spreading feet some floating 
raft of decayed vegetation, forms a conspicuous object 
owing to the pure whiteness of the under tail-coverts, 
which contrast so sharply with the dark brown and grey 
of the back and breast feathers. Thus, when flirting 
their tails up and down and nodding their heads with 
a quick nervous action as they pick right and left at any 
insect atoms in their path, this species may be readily 
distinguished at a considerable distance, and a nearer 
view presents the bright colours of the beak and legs. 
Their nests, which are too familiar to need much 
description here, vary considerably according to cir- 
cumstances in the style of construction. The rough 
loosely formed mass of reeds, flags, and rushes, which in 
some localities may easily pass unnoticed from its simi- 
larity to the dried litter around, is very different to that 
neatly made rush basket, almost as highly finished as 
a coot’s nest, which we find occasionally amongst the 
outlying reed stems. Some also may be seen inge- 
* Mr. Gould states in his “ Birds of Great Britain,’ that a 
similar instance was witnessed a few years back on Sir Morton 
Peto’s estate, at Somerleyton; and a keeper at the Zoological 
Society’s Gardens, described this species as very destructive to 
the young ducks, even attacking the old ones if they came to the 
rescue, and as frequently nesting in the boxes erected for wild- 
fowl on the various ponds “ when not even a goose dare approach 
within some yards of them.” 
