GALLINULA CHLOEOPUS. 785 



towards one end ; but somewhat more pointed or elongated examples occur. The ground is a pale stone-colour, 

 commonly tinted with pink when fresh. Some eggs are a very pale pinkish drab colour, others almost pale 

 whity brown. They are more or less thickly sprinkled with spots, specks, and moderately-sized blotches of 

 deep red, reddish brown, and purple, as the case may be." Sometimes the general appearance of the egg is 

 streaked, the markings being often more or less grouped along irregular lines, running lengthways with the 

 egg. The average size of twenty eggs is 1-62 by 121. 



I have frequently found the nest of the Moorhen in England, and it is sometimes built and concealed in 

 an interesting manner. On reference to my oological notes made in Essex in 1866-67, 1 find that the nesting- 

 time in that part of England is at the latter end of April and beginning of May ; and I transcribe the following 

 particulars from an old note-book with reference to the breeding of this bird in Pitsea Island : — " Most of the 

 nests were built in water, though not in such deep water as the Coot's. Some rested on the mud left dry among 

 the reeds ; these were not very deep or thick, and were slovenly constructed of green reeds and ' flags,' lined 

 with the blades of dry reeds and also of green ones ; they were fixed between reeds growing out of the mud, 

 and none were nearer to the shore than a few yards. In the first nest I found there was but one fresh egg ; 

 this was standing in water of a few inches deep, and was built up in pile-fashion from the bottom, and kept in 

 its place by the standing reeds ; the lining of the nest was made up of bits of the blade of the reed. The egg 

 was of a stone-yellow ground-colour, spotted evenly throughout with rather small spots of lilac-red and 

 brownish red. Dimensions 1"55 by T21 inch. A second nest was built up fn the same fashion, but a few 

 blades of the supporting reeds were bent down over it, so that it was slightly concealed. There were four 

 eggs, slightly incubated, in this one, longer in shape than the above-mentioned, and of a yellower ground-colour, 

 and with lighter-coloured spots mingled with a few dashes of lilac. In another nest similarly constructed 

 there were two fresh eggs, which differed totally from both the aforesaid ; they were blunt ovals, similarly 

 shaped at each end, and of a buff ground-colour, blotched with tolerably large blotches of lilac and a few blots 

 of light red and slaty blue : they measured 1*67 by 1*21 inch. A fourth nest was built in water on the roots 

 of reeds, and supported by their stalks all round; it was raised up like a Coot's, with perpendicular sides, to 

 a height of 8 or 9 inches from the surface of the water : the body of the nest was constructed of reed-stalks, 

 lined with blades cut into lengths of 3 or 4 inches. The green blades of the supporting reeds were bent down 

 over the nest, and woven in among one another in a very clever manner, forming the framework of a complete 

 dome over the nest. There were eleven eggs in this nest, differing in a very marked manner. Three or four 

 were small and stumpy in form, with a whitish-yellow ground-colour, spotted sparingly throughout with blue, 

 lilac-red, and bi'ownish red; they measured l - 45 by T08 inch: the rest were somewhat pyriform, round at 

 the large end, and rather tapering at the small, with a reddish-yellow ground-colour, marked with very 

 irregular blotches of dark red-brown and dark slate-colour, mingled with smaller spots of the same colour ; 

 they measured T76 by T26. These two types were evidently the produce of two birds." 



The Moorhen sometimes builds in trees ; and the late Mr. E. Newman, who was a diligent oologist, 

 mentions having seen the nest high up in spruce firs near the bole, and also out at the end of a branch, while 

 at other times he found it on horizontal boughs or on the top of pollard willows. 



