562 THE RAILS 



5. Food. According to Yarrell the food of this species consists of worms, 

 snails, slugs, with some vegetables. The stomach of one examined by Dr. 

 Fleming was filled entirely with the young snails of Helix lucida. 1 Birds examined 

 by Professor Newstead were found to have swallowed freshwater molluscs, many 

 fragments of beetles, fruits of the ivy, coral and shells, fragments of water-bugs, 

 grass, seeds of the dog-rose and knapweed, caddis-worms, vegetable fibres, wheat, 

 grass, and unidentified seeds, together with small pebbles, and, in some instances, 

 fragments of coal. Both sexes feed the young, but the food is too minute to be 

 identified during the process of administration. I have seen the male feed the 

 female on the nest, but never have been able to determine the nature of the diet. 

 [B. L. T.] 



W A T E R H E N \Gallinula chloropus (Linnaeus). Moorhen ; stank-hen, 

 stankie (S. Scotland). French, poule d'eau ; German, Teichhuhn ; Italian, 

 gallinella d'acqua]. 



1. Description. The waterhen may be distinguished at once by the broad, 

 oval shield of bare skin on the forehead, vermilion in the adult, green in the im- 

 mature bird. The sexes are alike, and there is no seasonal change of plumage. 

 (PI. 134.) Length 13 in. [330 '2 mm.]. The adult has the head, neck, and under 

 parts of a dark slate-black, the back dark olive-brown glossed with green, a line 

 of white along the upper margin of the flanks, and white under tail-coverts. The 

 base of the beak and the shield on the forehead are of a bright vermilion, while 

 the tip of the beak is lemon-yellow. The legs are green with a " garter " 

 of red and yellow at the top of the tibia. The iris is red. The immature 

 bird differs from the adult in having the back of a dark olive-brown glossed 

 with oil green, the fore-breast dull greyish brown, and the middle of the 

 breast and abdomen dull slate frosted with white. The flanks are tinged with 

 brown. The beak and frontal shield are of a dull olive-green. The juvenile dress 

 apparently represents a mesoptyle plumage, wherein the upper parts are of a dark 

 greyish brown inclining to rufous on the scapulars. The lower breast and abdomen 

 are dull white, while the flanks are dull grey, washed on the hinder flanks with 

 brown. The nestling in down is black, with the base of the beak red. [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. In the British Isles the waterhen is very generally 

 distributed and plentiful, and on the Continent its northern limit is the Trond- 

 hjem's Fjord in Scandinavia, where it is scarce, 60 in Finland, and the St. Peters- 



1 Yarrell, British Birds, vol. iii. p. 162. 



