WATER-RAIL. 15 



always supposed the little black cock to be the male, and 

 the other the female ; but I have no evidence of this, and 

 our best sportsmen think differently, and urge the differ- 

 ence in number, which is as fifty to one, the difference in 

 size, which is as great as between a full snipe and a Jack, 

 the difference in colour, and a difference in the compara- 

 tive length of the beak and shank. 



We have the WATER-RAIL common enough about 

 Godalming. Those which have crossed the sea, return 

 before the ( land-rail ' or ' daker ' by about ten days. We 

 expect the water-rail on the 7th, the land-rail on the 1 7th 

 of April, and both keep their time with most commendable 

 punctuality. The water-rail's haunt near the town is usu- 

 ally called the * Withy-beds,' low swampy covers, full of 

 willows, alders, and coarse sedge and grass, that run along 

 the side of the Wey, between the wharf and Sweetapple's 

 paper-mill at Catteshall. A second place he condescends 

 to patronize is a swampy cover by the river at Godbold's, 

 among liighish trees : and a third is the willow-bed at the 

 top of Ocford water, I have no doubt that the water-rail 

 breeds in all these places, for in all of them you may 

 continually hear that strange, wild, powerful, shrill, half- 

 whistling kind of a call, which he utters in the breeding- 

 season : a call, by the way, that used sorely to plague me, 

 until I saw the bird actually utter it. I once heard it so 

 distinct and loud that I was sure the bird was close to me ; 

 so I stood as still as a post, and watched the bird skulking 

 about among the great tumps of sedge, and saw him stand 

 still and call. The only nest I have ever positively seen, 

 was in the willow-bed at Ocford- water : I did not find it 

 till the young birds were gone, and then there were two 

 addled eggs and the fragments of five egg-shells in it. 



