416 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
As early as the 2nd of April, 1846, after a mild 
winter, Mr. Blofeld found two young nestling water- 
hens dead, in the sedge fen, at Hoveton, which were 
then, at least, two or three days old, and I have 
seen the young in the down with young birds about 
three-quarters grown, at the end of June, and other 
nestlings even as late as the 29th of August.* The 
Rev. J. Burroughes informs me that he has seen a 
young bird of the first brood assisting its parents by 
bringing materials for a second nest, and the second 
brood, when hatched, are also, in part, fed and fostered 
by their older brothers and sisters; whilst additional 
nests are constructed to meet the requirements of 
the family so rapidly increasing in size and numbers. 
Instances have been known of water-hens raising their 
nests to avoid the consequences of a high tide; pre- 
vious losses from the same cause having instinctively 
led them to adopt such a course. With a like motive, 
no doubt, the overhanging boughs of willow and other 
trees, a foot or two above the surface of the water, are 
not uncommonly selected for nesting purposes, as well 
as even loftier situations.t 
* Mr. W. Jeffery, jun., in his “Ornithological notes from West 
Sussex,” in the “Zoologist” for 1866, gives the following dates 
from his own observations of three broods hatched by one pair of 
water-hens during that year—April 1st, first brood hatched off; 
April 28rd, a second nest completed and eggs laid; May 20th, 
second brood hatched; June 20th, the old birds drove the first 
brood away; 15th of July, a third brood hatched. These three 
broods were thus hatched in a period of about eleven weeks. 
+ “ Rusticus,” in his “Letters on Natural History,” edited by 
Edward Newman, F.L.S., gives an account of a moorhen’s nest, 
which he discovered on an island, placed some twenty feet from 
the ground, in a spruce fir-tree. The island itself was frequently 
flooded. Mr. A. Newton also informs me that he has on more than 
one occasion found this bird’s nest in a fir-tree at a considerable 
height from the ground, once at Culford at least twenty feet. 
