560 BRITISH BIRDS. 



The Waterhen is an early breeder, especially after a mild open winter, 

 its young in some instances having been known to be hatched in the 

 beginning of April. The nest is commenced usually by the beginning of 

 April, and the eggs are laid by the second week, or in backward seasons 

 not until the end of the month or early in May. The nest is often placed 

 amongst the reeds and aquatic vegetation on the banks of the water, but 

 not unf requently it is floating in the centre of the pool amongst the horse- 

 tail, reeds, or yellow iris. Sometimes it is placed amongst gnarled roots or 

 tall grass, and often on a low flat branch of a tree. In some cases it 

 habitually builds in fir trees, and has been known to hatch its young in a 

 tree twenty feet from the ground. This peculiar choice of a site is probably 

 to save its eggs from the sudden rising of the water. The nest is in many 

 cases a large mass of reeds, sometimes intermixed with flags and coarse 

 grass ; it is very loosely put together, but the materials being moist soon 

 settle down into a tolerably firm mass. The middle of the nest is rather 

 more carefully finished than the other parts, and the materials are finer, 

 sometimes dry leaves being used. Some nests are much larger than others, 

 and some are much more finished in appearance. Stevenson says that some 

 nests are " ingeniously arched over with the young reeds, as if to conceal 

 the eggs." 



The eggs of the Waterhen are from four to ten in number, seven or 

 eight being an average clutch. They are bufiish white or pale reddish buff 

 in ground-colour, spotted and speckled with reddish brown and dark grey. 

 The markings are never so numerous as to hide much of the ground-colour, 

 and generally they vary in size from that of No. 6 shot to a speck, but 

 sometimes many of them are as large as a pea. Some eggs are very 

 sparingly marked with very fine specks, others only have a few large 

 blotches, whilst many are evenly sprinkled with small markings over the 

 entire surface. The most richly marked clutch of Waterhen^s eggs that I 

 have ever seen is one containing five eggs, which I took on the 13th of May 

 this spring on a pond on Lord Walsingham's estate at Merton in Norfolk. 

 Some of the blotches are nearly an inch long, those eggs which are the most 

 blotched being also the most highly incubated ; and one egg, the least incu- 

 bated in the clutch, has very few and small surface-spots. This seems to 

 show that the bird commences to sit before the fall number of eggs is laid, 

 and that the colouring-matter is frequently exhausted before the clutch 

 is completed. They vary in length from 1'9 to 1'55 inch, and in breadth 

 from 1"3 to 1'15 inch*. The eggs of the Waterhen very closely resemble 

 those of the Corn-Crake and the Rails, but their much larger size prevents 

 their ever being confused with them. The Waterhen often rears as many 

 as three broods in the year. Its young in down have been found as early as 



* An abnormally large egg in my collection measures 2'19 incli in length and 1'46 

 inch in hreadth. 



