6 6 INVERERNE. 



My retriever brought me a water-rail (rallus aquaticus), 

 which he had caught amongst some rushes, the little bird not 

 being injured. I took it home to show to my children, and then 

 turned it loose again in a running stream, where it bustled away 

 quite at its ease, and seemingly indifferent to the circumstance 

 (rather a singular one in the history of its life) of having been an 

 hour or two in my shooting coat pocket. I was struck with the 

 courage of the little fellow when the dog brought him. He 

 fought away with both feet and bill, striking not only the dog's 

 face, but my hand when I took hold of him, and when I put my 

 hand into my pocket where he was, he flew at my fingers, pecking 

 at them with all his strength. I had occasion, on another day, 

 to remark the courage of a water-rail. One rose from a ditch 

 where the ground was covered with snow. As I did not fire 

 at him, he flew for a hundred yards, and pitched on the snow in 

 the adjoining field, and immediately set off to return to the water 

 from which he had been flushed. A large black-backed gull, 

 seeing the little black bird on the snow, made a dart at it to carry 

 it off; but the little rail immediately flung himself on his back, 

 and whenever the gull flew at him, he struck out manfully with 

 bill and claws, springing up and pulling feathers out of his 

 gigantic enemy, and keeping him off. Afraid, however, that the 

 little rail would be killed, I went and drove away the gull, and 

 allowed him to run back to the water. 



The water-rail is, at all times, a rare and solitary bird 

 in this country. I have but rarely seen them, although I am 

 constantly in the habit of hunting for snipe, etc., in the rushy 

 places and ditches where the rails do frequent when here. Their 

 tracks, too, are but rarely seen in the snow, although a rail 

 evidently travels a great distance on foot, passing over large open 

 fields from one ditch to another. I have sometimes traced them 

 in the snow for long distances. 



I hear the swans now during the moonlight nights calling in 

 the bay, and the wigeons keep up a constant whistling, varied 

 sometimes by a low croaking quack. The latter birds feed 

 wholly on grass and grassy weeds, coming regularly on the ebb of 



