MOOR-HEN, WATER-HEN. 411 



GALLINULA CHLOROPUS (Linnams). 

 MOOR-HEN, WATEE-HEJST. 



Abundant as is this familiar and most interesting 

 species throughout the kingdom, it is perhaps no- 

 where so numerous or so generally dispersed as in 

 Norfolk. Not only in its main strongholds, on the 

 Broads and Meres, does it find the needful shelter of 

 reeds and rushes, but the deep sedgy ronds of our 

 sluggish rivers, extending for miles on either bank, 

 are a constant resort in summer, and wherever, as is 

 peculiarly the case in the vicinity of Norwich, some 

 smaller streams winding their tortuous course through 

 the low meadows, abound in alder and osier carrs, 

 reed-beds, and islands of tangled brushwood, water-hens 

 may be met with at all seasons, and, though thinned 

 by the sportsman or an unusually severe winter, will 

 soon recover their former abundance. Nearer still 

 to the habitations of man, this bird, with its strange 

 mixture of shyness and sociability, frequents the reedy 

 margins of our inland lakes and other ornamental waters, 

 however limited in extent, provided only there is suffi- 

 cient harbour some sheltering nook of rank aquatic 

 herbage and a surface coated with weeds and floating 

 plants. The ancient moat half choked with vegetation, 

 the home pond, or pit-hole in the fields, and even, at 

 times, the centre of a plantation at a distance from 

 water, will form the home of these versatile creatures, 

 which, adapting their habits to circumstances, will roost 

 as readily in a tree, shrub, or fence, as amidst reeds and 

 rushes. The busy sound of a water mill, or foundry, or 

 the noisy traffic of a railroad skirting their haunts, fails 

 to disturb their equanimity, for as the train rushes past 

 we catch sight of them for an instant from the carriage 

 window, quietly picking about in an adjoining ditch. 

 3 G 2 



