248 THE BLUE-BREASTED BANDED RAIL. 



Their flight is slow and flapping (their large legs hanging 

 down conspicuously behind), and is rarely extended beyond 

 twenty or thirty yards, after which they drop, into cover if pos- 

 sible, but if there be none close enough in the direction in which 

 you have driven them, on to the bare ground, where they take 

 up the running in real earnest. Where dogs are barking behind 

 them, they make a push to reach the nearest cover before 

 alighting ; but on one occasion on which I chanced to cut off 

 a bird from the only patch of real cover within two hundred 

 yards, it dropped into a tiny bush after a flight of perhaps 

 seventy yards, and was seized by a dog directly. 



They are very silent birds, and I have never heard their regu- 

 lar call, but when feeding, if a pair are together, I have heard one 

 utter a rather sharp, though not loud, whistled note. 



I have never seen them swimming voluntarily ; a wounded 

 bird dropping in the water will swim, and if pursued will dive, 

 but I do not think that they normally take to the water. 



Their food is very varied, chiefly, I think, worms, small snail 

 and other shells, tiny grasshoppers and other insects, but 

 grass seeds and vegetable substances are generally found 

 mingled with their other food, and with it all an abundance of 

 coarse sand. When wounded, they will hide up in any hole, most 

 especially in holes, just above water level, in under-cut banks 

 of streams and water-courses, and if shot at on such banks and 

 not killed outright, they are sure to disappear into some such 

 refuge, leaving no scent behind them, as they always run or 

 paddle some little distance in the water, under the overhanging 

 bank, before lying up. 



In the day time, even when beating patches of swamp which 

 you know to contain several, you will rarely flush one unless 

 you have small active dogs. At first, no doubt, they run about, 

 but if the hustling is continued, they creep into some hole, or 

 if there be none such, crouch under some dense tuft, where a 

 sharp-eyed beater every now and then spies them out and 

 pounces on them. 



They are very easy to keep for a time in confinement, and soon 

 get so tame that they will feed out of your hand, eating greedi- 

 ly worms, small snails, boiled rice, vegetables, almost anything 

 of this kind you give them. But they dislike a bright light, and 

 always take refuge in the darkest corner during the sunnier 

 hours of the day, and after a time always seem to pine away 

 and die. Probably they would live well enough in suitable 

 aviaries. I have always had them in cages. 



I do not know exactly how to define it ; but, having seen 

 much of this species, I should say that it was much less of the 

 Water-Hen type than are the Crakes and more of the Water- 

 Rail. 



I cannot say whether this species is at all migratory in India. 

 Some remain all the year round in the neighbourhood of 



