53 



MOOR-HEN. 



WATER-HEX. COMMON GALLINULE. MOAT-HEN. MOOR-COOT. MARSH-HEN. 



PLATE CLXXXI. PIG. I. 



GalUnula Moropus, PENNANT. MONTAGU. 



Fulica cliloropm, BEWICK. FLEMING. 



THE nest of the Moor-Hen, which is large, is strongly put together, 

 though only of rough workmanship, and is commonly found well con- 

 cealed 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. It has been 

 known as much as three feet above the surface, on the stump of a 

 tree, or even on the lower branches of a fir, or in a thorn bush at 

 that elevation. The Eev. Leonard Jenyns has recorded one instance 

 in which it was constructed 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. 

 R. T. Davidson, Esq., of Muirhouse, has informed me of a nest he 

 found, thirty feet from the water, near the river Blackadder, at precisely 

 the same height in the same kind of tree. He says, ' there was a 

 reason for it, the rising 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 over- 

 hanging the lake at Castle Howard, at a height of four or five feet 

 above the water. 



The nest has been seen quite unattached to any fixture, though sur- 

 rounded by loose sticks, and thus at the mercy of the winds and 

 waves. Moor-Hens have been known both to hatch their eggs after 

 being removed in part of the nest to another place, and also them- 



