WATER-RAIL. 405 



"Annals of Natural History" for 1839 (vol. ii., p. 78) 

 is the following description of a nest of this species 

 taken by Mr. John Smith, in the summer of that 

 year, in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth, but the exact 

 spot is not stated : " The bird had selected for her 

 nest a thick tuft of long grass, hollow at the bottom, on 

 the side of the reed pond ; the nest, about an inch and 

 a half thick, was composed of willow leaves and rushes ; 

 it was so covered by the top of the grass, that neither 

 bird, nest, or eggs, could be seen ; the entrance to and 

 from the nest was through an aperture of the grass, 

 directly into the reeds, opposite to where any one could 

 stand to see the nest." After minutely describing 

 the appearance of the eggs, which, being now pretty 

 generally known, it is here unnecessary to repeat, the 

 same writer remarks : " On the 20th of June I found 

 another nest in the same reed-pond; the eggs were 

 destroyed ; this nest was built amongst the reeds and 

 very near the water. On the 10th of July I obtained 

 a third nest from the same place, of eleven eggs, within 

 two or three days of hatching, the nest and structure 

 much like the first." 



Two eggs in my own collection were taken with others 

 by the Rev. W. S. Hore, on Horsey Mere, in the summer 

 of 1850; and I have occasionally known them offered 

 for sale in our market, with those of water-hens, coots, 

 and grebes. Mr. A. Newton informs me that on the 

 15th of May, 1853, a nest with nine eggs was found at 

 Downham, close to the river which there divides this 

 county from Suffolk, and that on the 8th of June in the 

 same year a nest with six eggs was found in Feltwell Fen 

 in Norfolk. I have also two eggs of this species from 

 the neighbourhood of Diss, which were taken in 1860 

 during the first week in June, from a nest which 

 contained nine; and in 1862, about the first week 

 in May, three nests were found at Upton, near Acle, 

 containing six, seven, and eight eggs respectively. 



