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Voi.^Xiii.l Fletcher, Pield Notes on Some Rallina;. aj 



working tracks were showing plainly in the reeds. By 31st 

 August two eggs were laid, and the clutch completed in two 

 more days. This bird laid her eggs at mid-day ; so did another 

 which nested in the school swamp. I took the clutch above, and 

 the birds rebuilt a few feet away and reared their brood. 



This swampy creek was a great resort of these Rails, and about 

 a mile further down its course four other nests were found with 

 full clutches. The nests were placed in tussocks, and their heights 

 ranged in position from a foot to 3 feet above the water or mud. 

 One nest was placed 4 feet high in a tangle of reeds and dead 

 branches. Under this nest was another lower down, and a Wren 

 also built in the same clump. Were all inhabited at once ? 



A swampy creek runs through the play-ground, and, in spite of 

 the noise of the school children, it is a great haunt of the Rail 

 and Spotless Crake. The latter was flushed many times, and three 

 nests were found, but they were either not used or were pillaged. 

 The Rails nested freely, and one was found sitting on five eggs in a 

 clump not 5 feet from the edge of the play-ground, which runs to the 

 swamp. In fact, when playing hide-and-seek, some scholars hid 

 close to the bird, and several times when a cricket ball was lost I 

 have been afraid the searchers would unwittingly destroy the home. 

 I broke one of the eggs, and reckoned the hen had been sitting four 

 days, so, allowing three weeks for incubation, I concluded the chicks 

 would be out by 7th November. This bird was remarkably tame, 

 and would stay on the nest whilst the reeds above her were parted, 

 and twice allowed her back to be touched. All was well until the 

 3rd of November, when some creature stole two eggs, but she 

 continued sitting. The evening the chicks were due to be hatched 

 I looked at the nest, but the eggs were cold. I left them, and a 

 few days afterwards broke one. It contained a fully-developed 

 chicken with the beak in a position to chip the shell. The tiny 

 creature was clothed in black down ; its bill was black, and it had 

 greyish- white legs. I returned to the nest for the other egg, but it 

 had gone. Twenty days afterwards a second nest was found near, 

 and the hen was sitting on five eggs. 



Another bird I watched was incubating two eggs, but these were 

 found to be addled. The bird left them of her own accord. Yet 

 another pair successfully hatched a brood in a nest built in a 

 gutter by the wayside, just 3 feet from the road, down which a 

 constant stream of traific passed. 



Occasionally Slate-breasted Rails are met with some distance 

 from water. I presume they are travelling from one swamp to 

 another. The last brood of young ones evidently remain with 

 their parents during the autumn. A pair in the school swamp still 

 (April) have their chicks following them, and warn them should 

 danger threaten. I stood on a log the other evening and was 

 immediately challenged by the male bird ; below me in the rushes 

 the hen answered, then the little ones replied, and as I listened I 

 heard the faint splash of water, the rustlings of a few reeds, and 

 the family disappeared. 



