572 THE RAILS 



The newly hatched young are typical Rails, covered with hairy, 

 black down, and showing very little likeness to their parents. For 

 the first few days they are tended entirely by the hen (exactly as in 

 the case of the waterhen), the cock not being allowed to approach 

 them. They are fed from the beak with insect food with great care, 

 and, according to Mr. Bonhote's observations, do not attempt to pick 

 up food for themselves till they are four days old. 



On the fourth day Mr. Bonhote was surprised to see the cock 

 and hen lying side by side and brooding the young together. From 

 this time onward the parental duties were shared by both, and the 

 young attached themselves indifferently to either. At the sight 

 of a hawk, however, the hen retired to the farthest corner of the 

 aviary with all the young, while the cock, with outstretched wings and 

 ruffled feathers, rushed to the attack, biting the wire and uttering a 

 piercing cry not unlike that of a hawk itself. 1 Mr. R. J. Ussher 

 compares this note to the squeal of a trapped rabbit. 



The young leave the nest as soon as they are thoroughly dried, 

 and make no further use of it. In a few days they can run well, and 

 it is a pretty sight to watch the two parents in charge of their young 

 brood. Oswin Lee describes how an old bird with a brood of eleven 

 newly hatched young fed past him within a few yards without noticing 

 him: "The little downy chicks ran nimbly about and caught the 

 insects on the grass stems, often clustering round their mother as she 

 found some choice morsel for them. She pecked the ground just as 

 a hen does, and called the young ones round her." 2 At a rather later 

 stage I have seen the old birds lead their young brood on to a strip 

 of open ground. Both were obviously uneasy, and walked with out- 

 stretched necks, intently watching for the least sign of danger, and 

 ready at once to retreat to cover. 



Selby says that the young are fully fledged in six weeks, and 

 Mr. Bonhote describes his seven weeks' old birds as fully feathered. 



1 Avicultural Magazine, vol. ii. p. 180 (1896). 



2 British Birds in their Nesting Haunts, ii. p. 3. 



