0 
AVATEU-RAIL. 
1)1*00(1 to tlio nest. A few days later, tlie two old birds, accompanied by their reduced family of three, were 
encountered on tlie same marsli, though their quarters had been removed to a part where the soil was firmer. 
The young had rapidly gained strength, running actively aeross the open and hiding themselves so seeurely 
in the cover, that without the assistance of a retriever there would have been but little chanee of alisrlitina: on 
their place of concealment. On the 7th of July, while quanting up one of the adjoining dykes, I again came 
suddenly on this small party, when the youngsters at once betook themselves to the water, swimming boldly 
across a shallow pool, and, on making the shore, instantly disappearing in the eoarse herbage. 
J hough AA atei -Rails remain in Great Rritain throughout the Avinter in considerable numbers, it is obvious 
that many arrhe on the south coast during spring from across the Channel. Along the shore near Rye and 
levensey, and again, further west, about Rrighton and Shoreham, I oeeasionally fell in with these birds in the 
coarse grass about the brackish pools near the coast, or in the ditches intersecting the adjoining marshes. 
Shortly after daybreak one morning in the spring of 1859, hetAveen tAA^enty and thirty Avere put out from the 
beds of samphire and other salt-Avater Aveeds groAving on the mud-flats in the Nook at Rye. 
A AA ater-Rail that I kept in confinement Avould occasionally mount to some height among the branehes 
of the slirubs and hushes in the garden, being able apparently to grasp strongly with its elaAVS. After 
remaining in captivity for a couple of years, it Avas at length killed by a combined attaek of three Herring- 
Gulls, aa Iio surrounded the poor little bird and peeked it to death before assistance could be rendered. 
