V 
THE BIRDS OF SINGAPORE ISLAND 
Other habits -.^This is normally a resident bird in the 
Colony but we suspect that its numbers are augmented on 
occasions by visitors from the north- It is a noisy bird and 
in the evening its loud raucous call or rather succession of 
calls (likened by one author to the braying of an ass!) is a 
familiar sound in the gardens. So nicely is this oiatburst 
usually timed that we always think of it as an evening- 
thanksgiving sent up by the bird before it retires for the night. 
[The white-breasted water-hen, called by Malays ayam- 
ayam — a temi applied indiscriminately to all this class of bird — 
is quite common. It frequents thickets and coarse herbage 
and may usually be seen amongst the bushes on the banks 
of any sheet of water : but it may also often be observed in 
gardens skulking about the edge of the jungle or in the little 
broad sandy ditches at the sides of even the main country 
roads: it runs %'ery quickly and often carries its brown tail 
quite upright. Its black back and white breast make it rather 
conspicuous: it has a shrill call. Its nest (it breeds on the 
lake in the Botanical Gardens) is made ,of weedy materials 
and is a clumsy structure : it lays half a dozen or more large 
eggs of a dull brownish-white ground colour splashed with 
spots and markings of reddish brown. It feeds on insects 
and seeds and can easily be kept in an aviarv. It is tiot useful 
for the table.— J. A. S, B.] 
Other Raiis. 
A little incident which happened when this book was being 
prepared is worth recording here for it illustrates, not only 
the habits of rails in general, but provides an object lesson 
for amateur naturalists. 
When it became necessary to send the skins of selected 
common birds to an artist in order that the plates could l>e 
made it was discovered, curiously enough, that there was not 
a suitable skin of the white-breasted water-hen in the museum. 
All the specimens in the museum series illustrated some special 
point in the range of the bird or perhaps its age, and as not one 
could be spared a young Dyak lad was sent out with a small 
gun to gel a specimen. 
[7^] 
