ERYTHRA PHCENICTIRA. 789 



I have nowhere seen it so tame as on the borders of the Slave-Island lake. Here a pair frequented the 

 vicinity of my compound, which extended from the bungalow on the " Galle face " to the edge of the water, 

 and passed their time between feeding in a little sedgy inlet and lurking beneath some screw-pines 

 {Pandanus) which grew in the adjoining grounds. In the mornings they frequently ventured on to the open 

 grass at the end of the garden ; and one evening, after a very heavy monsoon shower, they perched on the top 

 of a bamboo fence for a considerable time, and plumed themselves like Sparrows. In this locality I had ample 

 opportunity of listening to the extraordinary cries for which this species is celebrated. Wonderful as they are, 

 and most unnatural as proceeding from the throat of a bird, I cannot but admit that they are to my ears very 

 interesting from the bare fact of their being so remarkable. It cannot be denied that they would startle a 

 new arrival in the colony, if uttered beneath his windows on the first moonlight night that he was destined to 

 repose in one of the beautiful bungalows in Colpetty ; and he might probably spring to the window and anxiously 

 inquire who was being strangled ! Yet as soon as he knew that they were merely the outcome of the vocal 

 powers of two timid little Waterhens rejoicing in the cool of the tropical night, his alarm would be turned into 

 pleasure at listening to such strange bird-notes. It would be difficult to give to my European readers an 

 adequate idea of the sounds by attempting to syllabize them ; but they commence somewhat with the syllables 

 quaor, quaor, quaor, slowly pronounced at first, and then accelerated and breaking into korowak wok, korowak 

 ivok-ivok, korowok wok ; this is changed into a very deep quoor, quoor, qu-ooor, ending slowly and with apparent 

 effort, as if the bird's throat had suddenly become very sore with its exertions. 



A writer in India, Mr. E. H. Aitken, takes a less favourable view of the matter, and, in his notes to 

 Mr. Hume for ' Nests and Eggs/ says, " In September 1878 I was living at Bombay in a house surrounded 

 by very low-lying fields, which were under water nearly all the monsoon, and, of course, became the resort of 

 various water-birds. Among them this year were half a dozen of this Gallinula, which very soon made their 

 presence known by their awful cries. I cannot understand Dr. Jerdon dismissing the cry of this bird, if he ever 

 heard it during the breeding-season, with the words 'has a loud call/ Any thing more unearthly proceeding 

 from the throat of a bird I never heard. It began with loud harsh roars, which might have been elicited from 

 a bear by roasting it slowly over a large fire, then suddenly changed io a clear note, repeated like the coo 

 of a Dove/' 



Of their habits he writes, " Often in the morning two or three of the birds might be seen in some little 

 open space fighting like young cock-chickens. When flushed they seldom flew far, seeming to trust more to 

 their legs than their wings." Jerdon notices that it runs with great rapidity and erect tail, and climbs with 

 facility through the thick shrubs and reeds, from which it is dislodged with difficulty. In the Andamans 

 Mr. Davison found it in secondary jungle, sugarcane- and paddy-fields, along the edges of mangrove-swamps, 

 and anywhere where there was cover. 



Blyth remarks in a note on this species as follows : — " Its blood is accounted a valuable remedy by the 

 natives of Bengal, as is also that of Casarca rutila (the Ruddy Shieldrake) ; hence in the bazar the dealers 

 want a higher price for Porzana pkcenicura than for other birds of its size." 



The food of the White-breasted Waterhen consists of grain, seeds of aquatic plants, and other vegetable 

 matter, and also insects. Herr Meyer notices that it scratches in the ground with its feet for its food like a 

 fowl. 



Nidification. — Regarding the nesting of this species I cannot do better than transcribe here the notes I 

 sent some years ago to Mr. Hume on the subject. They are as follows : — " I have found the eggs of E. pkceni- 

 cura in the Western Province from the beginning of June to the latter part of September. On the edge of 

 the Colombo Lake a number of nests taken were constructed in a variety of situations : some on the ground, of 

 reeds and grass-stalks ; others on tussocks surrounded by water, and made of the same materials laid on the top 

 of the tussock, the stalks of which were beaten down for a foundation ; others on the branches of the screw- 

 pine, one of these being at a height of 10 feet from the ground. These last were flat and shallow, and 

 made of the leaves of aquatic plants and blades of rushes. As a rule the top of the nest is almost flat, 

 without any hollow for the reception of the eggs, and the materials of the interior are generally laid across 

 each other, somewhat regularly. One nest, found on the branches of a Pandanus, was constructed entirely of 

 the dead stems of a creeper with which this tree was covered. The same remarkable difference exists in 



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