92 MOOR-HEN. 
concealed among reeds, long grass, or the roots of trees, just 
above the water’s edge, on the margin of a stream or by a 
bank. One has been known as much as three feet above the 
surface, on the stump of a tree, even on the lower branches 
of a fir, or in a thorn bush at that elevation. The Rev. 
Leonard Jenyns has recorded an instance in which it was con- 
structed among the ivy encircling a large elm, which hung 
over the water’s edge, at the height of at least ten feet from 
the ground. A writer in the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ 
mentions another placed in a fir tree twenty feet above the 
water. He says ‘there was a reason for it, the msing of the 
water in the pond frequently flooded the banks of the island, 
and, as I had before witnessed, had destroyed several broods.’ 
One was built upon the branches of a willow overhanging 
the lake at Castle Howard, at a height of four or five feet 
above the water. 
The nest has been known quite unattached to any fixture, 
though surrounded by loose sticks, and thus at the mercy of 
the winds and waves. The birds have been observed both to 
hatch their eggs after being removed in part of the nest to 
another place, and also themselves to remove them, when 
threatened with destruction by the rising of the water, fresh 
materials being in each case brought together. J. H. Gurney, 
Esq. and W. R. Fisher, Esq. have recorded an instance in which 
they knew the nest of a Moor-Hen placed in a fir plantation 
at a distance of a quarter of a mile from any water. I have 
seen one myself placed at some height over the water on a 
fallen branch of a tree, which formed a natural bridge over 
a river. 
The Rev. J. C. Atkinson, writing in the ‘Zoologist,’ page 
767, observes of the Moor-Hen, that it ‘occasionally at least, 
builds a second nest, to accommodate a moiety of its young, 
when they have attained a size too large to permit the original 
one to contain them all; and when the colony is sent to 
the second nest, one of the old birds accompanies it. An 
instance of this habit occurred in the vicinity of my father’s 
residence, when I was last at home. The female Moor-Hen 
was the architect, and the subsidiary nest she busied herself 
in constructing was built on a bough overhanging the water. 
The weight of the structure at last became too great for the 
bough to bear; it gave way and the nest was destroyed by 
its own weight, which caused it to fall to pieces when it lost 
its horizontal position. The old bird seemed to be much 
