A ND NEIGHB UMIIO OD. 323 



127. WATER-RAIL 



Rallus aquaticus. 



Although we never found a nest of this bird in 

 Northamptonshire, I have good reason to believe 

 that it has occasionally bred in the neighbourhood of 

 Lilford, as I have more than once met with young 

 Water-Rails about the river and brooks in July and 

 August, when fishing, or searching for young Wild 

 Ducks or an early Snipe. In the aatumn and winter 

 this Rail is by no means uncommon, though its 

 numbers vary greatly in our district in different years, 

 and no doubt many altogether escape observation 

 from their strong instincts of concealment and the 

 great difficulty with which they are forced to fly. 

 Our acquaintance with the Water-Rail is pretty con- 

 siderable, as we have met with it in almost every 

 country and county that we have visited for shooting 

 in autumn, winter, and early spring. Its favourite 

 haunts are dense jungles of reed or, failing these, the 

 banks of sluggish streams, ponds, and ditches over- 

 grown with sedge, and thorn-bushes, amongst the 

 latter we have often found the birds perched at a 

 considerable height from the ground : indeed the 

 Water-Rail is a good climber, and I well remember 

 shooting a good many of these birds in the great floods 

 of the early months of 1853 on Otmoor in Oxfordshire, 

 by forcing them to fly from their perches in the high 

 thorn fences, whilst our dogs were hunting assiduously 

 but fruitlessly along the brimming ditches below. On 

 one occasion, near Lilford, I happened to notice a 

 Water-Rail "keeping small" in a tall thorn fence 

 that T w^as beating for what it might produce, with a 



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