604 THE RAILS 



The young are fed by both parents. The male was often seen by 

 Miss Turner to bring the food to the nest, and give it to the brooding 

 hen, who then gave it to the young. 1 The feeding of the young 

 continues to some extent after they are able to fend for themselves. 

 But that there are limits to the patience of the parents is shown by 

 the following incident witnessed by Mr. W. H. Hudson, 2 which is well 

 worth recording on account of its interest for the student of animal 

 psychology. 



Mr. Hudson saw a parent bird on the water with one young, 

 which it was feeding assiduously. After this had been going on 

 some time, another young bird quitted the nest where it had been 

 resting, and came up. When it saw the parent bird rise with a stem, 

 it pushed forward to be fed. Before it could receive the morsel, the 

 first young bird snatched at and swallowed it. And here comes the 

 interesting part of the story. The parent coot looked fixedly at 

 the offender for about four seconds, and then suddenly, and with 

 incredible fury, dashed at him and hunted him over the pond. In 

 vain the young bird " rose up and flew over the surface of the water, 

 beating the surface with his feet, uttering cries of terror ; in vain he 

 dived ; again and again she overtook and dealt him the most savage 

 blows with her sharp beak, until, her anger thoroughly appeased and 

 the punishment completed, she swam back to the second bird, and 

 began once more diving." 



The piping or peeping notes of the young are not unlike those of 

 young grebe, and, like theirs, are frequently heard coming from the 

 midst of the reeds when the birds themselves are invisible. They 

 sound differently according to the distance of the hearer. Heard 

 close, a few yards away, they had for me something of the sound of 

 a liquid "qweep" or "qwee-eep." Though repeated, the notes are uttered 

 separately, and not in a continuous series like those of young grebe. 

 Unlike the latter, they have in them a slight rasping or scraping 

 sound. Heard at some distance, they seem more like "quee" or 



1 Op. cit., p. 18. 2 Hampshire Days, pp. 281-2. 



