Descriptive List of the Common Birds 
time with a higher intonation, till it gets, as it 
were, the key-note of its call.” 
This species runs very fast, and does not, as 
a tule, take to its wings unless flushed. (I. G. II. 
p- 51, but plate not a good one.) 
The Rails, 174-176 
174. Amaurornis phantcurus: The White- 
breasted Water-hen. (F. 1401), (J. 907), 
(+II.) 
A dark slaty-grey bird, almost black, with a 
white face, throat, and breast. The under 
parts of the tail, which is carried almost erect, 
are chestnut red. Wherever there is a pond 
having near it some bamboos or rushes there 
is one likely to see a water-hen. It is a great 
skulker, and always makes for cover the 
moment it thinks it is being watched. “ It is,” 
as Blanford remarks, “an excessively noisy 
bird; its loud, hoarse, reiterated call, pre- 
dominating in the evening and morning over 
the cries of the other waders and the ducks in 
the village tank, must be familiar to most 
people in India.” (Illus. B. B., p. 173.) 
175. Porphyrio poliocephalus: ‘The Purple 
Moorhen, or Purple Coot. (F. 1404), (J. 902), 
(IV.) 
195 
