WATER-RAIL. 
15 
always supposed the little black cock to be the male, and 
the other the female ; but I have no evidence of this, and 
our best sportsmen think differently, and urge the differ- 
ence in number, which is as fifty to one, the difference in 
size, which is as great as between a full snipe and a Jack, 
the difference in colour, and a difference in the compara- 
tive length of the beak and shank. 
We have the Water-rail common enough about 
Godalming. Those which have crossed the sea, return 
before the ' land-rail ' or ' daker ' by about ten days. We 
expect the water-rail on the 7th, the land-rail on the 1 7th 
of April, and both keep their time with most commendable 
punctuaUty. The water-raiFs haimt near the town is usu- 
ally called the ' Withy-beds,' low swampy covers, full of 
willows, alders, and coarse sedge and grass, that run along 
the side of the Wey, between the wharf and Sweetapple's 
paper-mill at Catteshall. A second place he condescends 
to patronize is a swampy cover by the river at Godbold's, 
among highish trees : and a third is the willow-bed at the 
top of Ocford water, I have no doubt that the water-rail 
breeds in all these places, for in all of them you may 
continually hear that strange, wild, powerful, shrill, half- 
whistling kind of a call, which he utters in the breeding- 
season : a call, by the way, that used sorely to plague me, 
until I saw the bird actually utter it. I once heard it so 
distinct and loud that I was sure the bird was close to me ; 
so I stood as still as a post, and watched the bird skulking 
about among the great tumps of sedge, and saw him stand 
still and call. The only nest I have ever positively seen, 
was in the willow-bed at Ocford- water : I did not find it 
till the young birds were gone, and then there were two 
addled eggs and the fragments of five egg-shells in it. 
