THE WATER-KAIL. 
328 
28th of September.'^ Late in the month of July 1831^ a 
brace of these birds were shot on their rising from a drain 
contiguous to Ballydrain Lake,, near Belfast, where the poor 
victims had probably a nest. The gamekeeper at Tollymore 
Park (Down) informed me that he saw the species in his neigh- 
bourhoood during May 1 846, and believed it to be breeding, though 
he could not find the nest. At Ballitore (Kildare) and Eox- 
borough (Cork) Mr. E. Ball has met with the nests of the water- 
rail ; and the bird itself has been observed at the end of May 
near Lough Count (Mayo). The species is not uncommon about 
Clonmel, where it breeds in deep wet bogs, and lays its eggs 
about the beginning of May.J It is common and resident in the 
county of Wexford, and called there the little waterhen.|| The 
Eev. T. Knox considers this bird as abundant in the county of 
Westmeath (but does not mention at what season), and has seen 
it^about Killaloe, on the river Shannon. 
Mr. Yarrell imagines there are more water-rails in Great 
Britain in summer than in winter, and remarks that the bird 
has been killed three times in winter in Scotland, and several 
times in Sussex, Kent, and Oxfordsliire.^^ With respect to 
Ireland, I have occasionally been disposed to believe that there 
must be an increase by migration to the number of water-rails 
bred in the country ; that they arrive in autumn, remain 
during winter, and depart northward in spring. The numbers 
shot around Belfast in autumn and winter are not, I feel certain, 
all bred in the district, though it is possible they may have 
* It differs from an old bird IdUed at the same place, two days afterwards, and 
from tbe many adults wbicb I have seen, by having the entire under surface from the 
lower part of the throat to the vent of a dull bullish colom*, with irregular transverse 
bands and markings of black. Some three or four plumes only on the flanks at each 
side exhibit the white transverse bands on the black feathers, which, being numerous 
in the adult bird, constitute its chief heauty. The spurs on the winglet of this young 
bird (whose sex was not noted) are sharper than those of the very few adult males 
and females which I have examined. The smallest was on the handsomest male that 
has come under my notice (killed March 15th), having the throat of a pure white, 
and the irides of a hue between coral and orange-red. 
t Mr. Bent BaU; — who, when a boy, frequently found it in snares which he had 
set for snipes in the neighbomliood of Youghal. 
i Mr. 11. Davis, Jun. il Mr. J. Poole. 
Y 2 
