592 THE RAILS 



about two days before hatching. This nest is placed [in an exposed 

 position "so that enemies may be observed from afar." On it the 

 young are brooded during the first few days of their life. Super- 

 numerary nests are also started after hatching, even when the first 

 brood are old enough to aid in their construction. 1 



At present the information available is too scanty to permit any 

 certainty as to the origin of these structures. There can be no doubt 

 that they are used as roosting and resting-places, but the nests built 

 before the laying of the eggs, that is, from three to four weeks before 

 hatching, can hardly be expressly intended by the birds to serve as 

 resting-places for their chicks, for very many species begin by building 

 nests which they leave in a more or less incomplete state. These 

 early nests appear to be merely experimental, whatever may be said 

 of the later structures. 



The following facts related by Mr. J. M. Boraston go to prove that the 

 material of the egg-nest may be used to construct supplementary nests, 

 and the material of these to construct other supplementary nests. On 

 May 21 he found a nest in a tuft of reeds on marshy ground. It was 

 a foot high, built of some thousands of dead oak leaves, and contained 

 eggs. He revisited the spot on June 27, and as he approached, 

 caught sight of a chick in down running to cover. He found that 

 the whole of the materials of the nest, " to the last leaf," had been 

 removed to form a second nest four yards away. At the same distance 

 in another direction a third nest had been roughly constructed of 

 similar materials, with the addition of a few flags and reeds. At his 

 next visit on July 11 the second nest had been partly demolished, 

 and the third nest built up so as to form the principal one ; whilst, 

 some five or six yards farther on, another rough nest had been built, 

 this being the fourth. All these nests were found in an area of less 

 than 30 feet square. None except the first contained eggs. 2 



The first clutch of eggs is usually laid in April, and is 



1 Lilford, Birds of Northants, i. 339 ; M. C. H. Bird.m. litt. 

 1 Birds by Land and Sea, pp. 163-4, and in litt. 



