ERYTHRA PHCENICURA. 
789 
I have nowhere seen it so tame as on the borders of the Slave-Island lake. Here a pair frequented the 
vicinity of my compound, which extended from the bungalow on the “ Galle face ” to the edge of the water, 
and passed their time between feeding in a little sedgy inlet and lurking beneath some screw-pines 
( Pandanus ) which grew in the adjoining grounds. In the mornings they frequently ventured on to the open 
grass at the end of the garden ; and one evening, after a very heavy monsoon shower, they perched on the top 
of a bamboo fence for a considerable time, and plumed themselves like Sparrows. In this locality I had ample 
opportunity of listening to the extraordinary cries for which this species is celebrated. "W onderful as they are, 
and most unnatural as proceeding from the throat of a bird, I cannot but admit that they are to my ears very 
interesting from the bare fact of their being so remarkable. It cannot be denied that they would startle a 
new arrival in the colony, if uttered beneath his windows on the first moonlight night that he was destined to 
repose in one of the beautiful bungalows in Colpetty ; and he might probably spring to the window and anxiously 
inquire who was being strangled ! Yet as soon as he knew that they were merely the outcome of the vocal 
powers of two timid little Waterhens rejoicing in the cool of the tropical night, his alarm would be turned into 
pleasure at listening to such strange bird-notes. It would be difficult to give to my European readers an 
adequate idea of the sounds by attempting to syllabize them ; but they commence somewhat with the syllables 
quaor, quaor, quaor, slowly pronounced at first, and then accelerated and breaking into korowak wok , korowak 
wok-wok, korowok wok ; this is changed into a very deep quoor, quoor, qu-ooor, ending slowly and with apparent 
effort, as if the bird’s throat had suddenly become very sore with its exertions. 
A writer in India, Mr. E. H. Aitlcen, takes a less favourable view of the matter, and, in his notes to 
Mr. Hume for ‘Nests and Eggs,’ says, “In September 1878 I was living at Bombay in a house surrounded 
by very low-lying fields, which were under water nearly all the monsoon, and, of course, became the resort of 
various water-birds. Among them this year were half a dozen of this Gallinula, which very soon made their 
presence known by their awful cries. I cannot understand Dr. Jerdon dismissing the cry of this bird, if he ever 
heard it during the breeding-season, with the words ‘ has a loud call.’ Any thing more unearthly proceeding 
from the throat of a bird I never heard. It began with loud harsh roars, which might have been elicited from 
a bear by roasting it slowly over a large fire, then suddenly changed to a clear note, repeated like the coo 
of a Dove.” 
Of their habits he writes, “ Often in the morning two or three of the birds might be seen in some little 
open space fighting like young cock-chickens. When flushed they seldom flew far, seeming to trust more to 
their legs than their wings.” Jerdon notices that it runs with great rapidity and erect tail, and climbs with 
facility through the thick shrubs and reeds, from which it is dislodged with difficulty. In the Andamans 
Mr. Davison found it in secondary jungle, sugarcane- and paddy-fields, along the edges of mangrove-swamps, 
and anywhere where there was cover. 
Blyth remarks in a note on this species as follows : — “ Its blood is accounted a valuable remedy by the 
natives of Bengal, as is also that of Casarca rutila (the Ruddy Shieldrake) ; hence in the bazar the dealers 
want a higher price for Porzana phamicura than for other birds of its size.” 
The food of the White -breasted Water hen consists of grain, seeds of aquatic plants, and other vegetable 
matter, and also insects. Herr Meyer notices that it scratches in the ground with its feet for its food like a 
fowl. 
Nidification. — Regarding the nesting of this species I cannot do better than transcribe here the notes I 
sent some years ago to Mr. Hume on the subject. They are as follows : — “ I have found the eggs of E. pheeni- 
cura in the Western Province from the beginning of June to the latter part of September. On the edge of 
the Colombo Lake a number of nests taken were constructed in a variety of situations : some on the ground, of 
reeds and grass-stalks ; others on tussocks surrounded by w r ater, and made of the same materials laid on the top 
of the tussock, the stalks of which were beaten doAvn for a foundation ; others on the branches of the screw- 
pine, one of these being at a height of 10 feet from the ground. These last Avcre flat and shallow, and 
made of the leaves of aquatic plants aud blades of rushes. As a rule the top of the nest is almost flat, 
Avithout any holloAV for the reception of the eggs, and the materials of the interior are generally laid across 
each other, somewhat regularly. One nest, found on the branches of a Pandanus, was constructed entirely of 
the dead stems of a creeper Avith which this tree was covered. The same remarkable difference exists in 
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