464 RALLID.E. 



worms, and snails. Like the Crakes, it makes more use of 

 its legs than of its wings, and places its safety in conceal- 

 ment. Rarely does it take flight, and then only when 

 closely hunted ; still more rarely does it expose itself out- 

 side its aquatic jungle. I recollect on one occasion, during 

 an intense frost, when every marsh was as impenetrable to 

 a bird's bill as a sheet of marble, passing in a carriage near 

 a stream which, having just issued from, its source, was 



THE WATEK KAIL. 



unfrozen; I then saw more than one Water Rail hunting 

 for food among the short rushes -and grass on the water's 

 edge. Its mode of walking I thought was very like that 

 of the Moor-hen, but it had not the jerking movement of 

 body characteristic of that bird, which alone would have 

 sufficed to distinguish it, even if I had not been near 

 enough. to detect the difference of colour. Either the 

 severity of the weather had sharpened its appetite, and 



