WATER-RAIL. 555 



The Water- Rail has been known to lay as many as nine or eleven eggs, 

 but from five to seven appears to be the usual number. They are pale 

 buff or buffish white in ground-colour, sparingly spotted and speckled with 

 reddish-brown surface-markings and violet-grey underlying ones. The 

 spots are seldom larger than No. 6 shot, and are most abundant on the large 

 end of the egg. The underlying spots are as numerous as the surface 

 ones, and on some eggs predominate. Sometimes the markings~are con- 

 gregated in a semi-confluent mass on the large end of the egg. On some 

 exceptional specimens a few of the spots are as large as peas. They are 

 very smooth; but do not exhibit much gloss. They vary in length from 

 1'5 to 1'28 inch, and in breadth from T09 to '98 inch. The eggs of the 

 Water-Rail are somewhat similar to those of the Corn-Crake, but are 

 rarely so thickly spotted ; those of the Spotted Crake can never be 

 confused with them, the spots are always larger, besides being more 

 numerous and distinct. 



The general colour of the upper parts of the adult Water- Rail is buffish 

 brown, each feather having a nearly black centre ; the primaries and secon- 

 daries are brown ; the lores are brown ; the rest of the sides of the head 

 and neck and the underparts are slate-grey, slightly paler on the chin, 

 and the feathers are tipped with buff on the belly and vent ; the flanks, 

 axillaries, under wing-coverts, and shortest under tail-coverts are black, 

 transversely barred with white, and the longest under tail-coverts are 

 white. Bill dark brown, the edges of the upper and three fourths of the 

 lower mandible dark orange ; legs, feet, and claws brown ; irides orange- 

 red. Winter plumage scarcely differs from that of summer, and the 

 female is only slightly duller in colour than the male. Young in first 

 plumage have the chin, the middle of the throat, breast, and belly nearly 

 white, the grey feathers of the underparts much suffused with brown, and 

 barred on the sides of the breast with blackish brown. This plumage is 

 moulted in the first autumn into that of birds of the year, which only differs 

 from the adult in having the slate-grey of the underparts slightly suffused 

 with brown, and the brown tips to the feathers of the lower flanks longer. 

 Young in down are nearly black. This species varies considerably in size, 

 especially in length of bill, legs, and feet. 



