412 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



But clear that ditch of its weeds, and trim the banks of 

 the flags and sedges, and, for a time at least, you banish 

 the water-hens more effectually even than by the use of 

 the gun. 



Mr. Lubbock truly remarks, e ' though this bird is so 

 often found exactly in the same situations as the coot, 

 although they nest and bring up their young together, 

 no birds differ more in habits." The sights and sounds 

 of human habitation, which drive the coot still further 

 into its reedy fastnesses, have attractions for the wary 

 but semi-domesticated water-hen, which feeds with the 

 marshman's fowls, breeds near his garden, and revenges 

 itself for the loss of an early sitting of eggs by repeated 

 raids upon his vegetable produce. In fact the water- 

 hen has a great partiality for gardens if adjoining the 

 main river, or skirted by a brook to which they can 

 retire on the least alarm ; and, whether in outlying 

 plantations, or in close vicinity to the keeper's cottage, 

 will devour barley and other grain with avidity, for, as 

 the author above quoted states, they " will arrive at the 

 keeper's whistle even before the pheasants" ; and this 

 not merely when hard weather has deprived them of 

 other means of subsistence. 



In the Northrepps plantations, near Cromer, a few 

 of these birds are found constantly in the breeding 

 season, though rarely seen during the winter months, 

 and their nests are frequently placed from six to ten 

 feet from the ground in the silver firs, from which the 

 young are, no doubt, conveyed to terra firma in the 

 prehensile feet of their parents.* There are only a 

 few small pits of water in the parish at all adapted 



In the " Zoologist " for 1854 (p. 4367), Mr. Samuel Gurney, of 

 Carshalton, states that a water hen which had built on the branch 

 of a fir tree overhanging the river, and a few feet above the water, 

 was seen to " fly down with two of her young brood, one in each 

 foot, from the nest." 



