354 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
This species has not occurred half a dozen times in 
Scotland ; and is much more irregular in its summer-visits to 
England than the preceding, but it is beheved to have nested 
on more than one occasion in East Anglia. Its distribution m 
the breeding-season in central and southern Europe is 
somewhat scattered, whUe in Africa it nests as far south as 
Natal, and in Asia as far east as the Persian Gulf. 
THE WATER-RAIL. Rallw aqnaticus, Linnaeus. 
A local rraidenl, but probably often overlooked. 
Owing to its shy and retiring nature, it is difficult to write 
with certainty as to the status of the Water-RaU. Many 
observers regard it solely as a winter-visitor, but i* is Possible 
that at this season when the tangled undergrowth has died 
down in the swampy marshes which the Water-Rail inhabits, 
it becomes more noticeable, and thus is more easily seen 
than at other seasons of the year. It is, however, satis- 
factory to be able to record it now as an mcreasing species; 
though at the beginnmg of the nineteenth century, when 
many suitable locaUties remained undrained, it was probably 
far more numerous than at the present day. 
In the parish of Kirkmichael in 1791 there was great 
plenty of the rarer species of birds, the land and the water- 
raUs "* and Sir WiUiam Jardine writes in 1842 : Durmg 
winter, in our own vicinity, we generaUy see or procure a 
few specimens in wet ditches which do not soon freeze^ 
and to which the bird at this time resorts, bemg driven from 
its better covered haunts by the severity of 
in such places, after being pursued, it wiU creep "ito some 
hole or under cover, and aUow itseU to be taken by the hand 
In summer we have shot it once or twice, but have alway^ 
been unable to discover the nest."t That the Water-Rail 
* Stat. Acct. Scot.y Vol. I., p. 60. 
t Nat. Lib., 1842, Vol. XII., p. 328. 
