GALL INULA CIILOBOPUS. 
785 
towards one end ; but somewhat more pointed or elongated examples occur. The ground is a pale stone-colour, 
commonly tinted with pink when fresh. Some eggs are a very pale pinkish drab colour, others almost pale 
whity brown. They are more or less thickly sprinkled with spots, specks, and moderately-sized blotches of 
deep red, reddish brown, and purple, as the case may be.” Sometimes the general appearance of the egg is 
streaked, the markings being often more or less grouped along irregular lines, running lengthways with the 
egg. The average size of twenty eggs is D62 by L21. 
I have frequently found the nest of the Moorhen in England, and it is sometimes built and concealed in 
an interesting manner. On reference to my oological notes made in Essex in 1866-67, 1 find that the nesting- 
time in that part of England is at the latter end of April and beginning of May ; and I transcribe the following 
particulars from an old note-book with reference to the breeding of this bird in Pitsea Island : — “ Most of the 
nests were built in water, though not in such deep water as the Coot’s. Some rested on the mud left dry among 
the reeds ; these were not very deep or thick, and were slovenly constructed of green reeds and f flags/ lined 
with the blades of dry reeds and also of green ones ; they were fixed between reeds growing out of the mud, 
and none were nearer to the shore than a few yards. In the first nest I found there was but one fresh egg; 
this was standing in water of a few inches deep, and was built up in pile-fashion from the bottom, and kept in 
its place by the standing reeds ; the lining of the nest was made up of bits of the blade of the reed. The egg 
was of a stone-yellow ground-colour, spotted evenly throughout with rather small spots of lilac-red and 
brownish red. Dimensions T55 by 121 inch. A second nest was built up in the same fashion, but a few 
blades of the supporting reeds were bent down over it, so that it was slightly concealed. There were four 
eggs, slightly incubated, in this one, longer in shape than the above-mentioned, and of a yellower ground-colour, 
and with lighter-coloured spots mingled with a few dashes of lilac. In another nest similarly constructed 
there were two fresh eggs, which differed totally from both the aforesaid ; they were blunt ovals, similarly 
shaped at each end, and of a buff ground-colour, blotched with tolerably large blotches of lilac and a few blots 
of light red and slaty blue : they measured D67 by U21 inch. A fourth nest was built in water on the roots 
of reeds, and supported by their stalks all round ,• it was raised up like a Coot’s, with perpendicular sides, to 
a height of 8 or 9 inches from the surface of the water : the body of the nest was constructed of reed-stalks 
lined with blades cut into lengths of 3 or 4 inches. The green blades of the supporting reeds were bent down 
over the nest, and woven in among one another in a very clever manner, forming the framew’ork of a complete 
dome over the nest. There were eleven eggs in this nest, differing in a very marked manner. Three or four 
were small and stumpy in form, with a whitish-yellow ground-colour, spotted sparingly throughout with blue 
lilac-red, and brownish red; they measured 1’45 by l - 08 inch: the rest were somewhat pyriform, round at 
the large end, and rather tapering at the small, with a reddish-yellow ground-colour, marked with very 
irregular blotches of dark red-brown and dark slate-colour, mingled with smaller spots of the same colour • 
they measured l - 76 by l - 26. These two types were evidently the produce of two birds.” 
The Moorhen sometimes builds in trees ; and the late Mr. E. Newman, who was a diligent oolo<dst 
mentions having seen the nest high up in spruce firs near the bole, and also out at the end of a branch vdiile 
at other times he found it on horizontal boughs or on the top of pollard willows. 
