Their flight is slow and flapping (their large legs hanging
down conspicuously behind), and is rarely extended beyond
twenty or thirty yards, after which they drop, into cover if possible,
but if there be none close enough in the direction in which
you have driven them, on to the bare ground, where they take
up the running in real earnest. Where dogs are barking behind
them, they make a push to reach the nearest cover before
alighting; but on one occasion on which I chanced to cut off
a bird from the only patch of real cover within two hundred
yards, it dropped into a tiny bush after a flight of perhaps
seventy yards, and was seized by a dog directly.
They are very silent birds, and I have never heard their regular
call, but when feeding, if a pair are together, I have heard one
utter a rather sharp, though not loud, whistled note
I have never seen them swimming voluntarily ; a wounded
bird dropping in the water will swim, and if pursued will dive,
but I do not think that they normally take to the water.
Their food is very varied, chiefly, I think, worms, small snail
and other shells, tiny grasshoppers and other insects, but
grass seeds and vegetable substances are generally found
mingled with their other food, and with it all an abundance of
coarse sand. When wounded, they will hide up in any hole, most
especially in holes, just above water level, in under-cut banks
of streams and water-courses, and if shot at on such banks and
not killed outright, they are sure to disappear into some such
refuge, leaving no scent behind them, as they always run or
paddle some little distance in the water, under the overhanging
bank, before lying up.
In the day time, even when beating patches of swamp which
you know to contain several, you will rarely flush one unless
you have small active dogs. At first, no doubt, they run about,
but if the hustling is continued, they creep into some hole, or
if there be none such, crouch under some dense tuft, where a
sharp-eyed beater every now and then spies them out and
pounces on them.
They are very easy to keep for a time in confinement, and soon
get so tame that they will feed out of your hand, eating greedily
worms, small snails, boiled rice, vegetables, almost anything
of this kind you give them. But they dislike a bright light, and
always take refuge in the darkest corner during the sunnier
hours of the day, and after a time always seem to pine away
and die. Probably they would live well enough in suitable
aviaries. I have always had them in cages.
I do not know exactly how to define it; but, having seen
much of this species, I should say that it was much less of the
Water-Hen type than are the Crakes and more of the Water-
Rail.
I cannot say whether this species is at all migrator)- in India.
Some remain all the year round in the neighbourhood of
Calcutta, but they seem much more numerous there in March and
April than at any other time—perhaps because the whole country
is drier and fewer places suited to their habits are then available,
and they are therefore easier to find.
THEY SEEM to breed in all the localities where I have noted
their occurrence, the breeding season extending from May to
the end of October, and they rear, I believe, at least two
broods during this period.
The nest, a pad or heap of grass varying from one to twelve
inches in height, and from six to ten inches in diameter at top,
where there is a slight depression for the eggs, is always placed
in grass, rushes, or standing rice in the immediate neighbourhood
of water.
Six is the largest number of eggs that I have known to
be found in any nest, but seven appears to be the full complement.
A nest taken on the 12th of July in a small swamp outside
and south of the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, which several of
the birds had frequented throughout the cold season, was a
conical heap of dry rush about eighteen inches in diameterat base,
nine at the top, and about six inches in height. The depression
may have been an inch deep in the centre, and was lined
with green grass. It was placed half on the land and half in
the water, completely surrounded by dense bulrushes, through
which, on the land side, the birds had made three distinct paths.
On the water side there was a tiny natural opening through the
bulrushes. The nest contained six hard-set eggs, and the
female was snared on it, having returned to it despite the disturbance
caused by two people smashing through the bulrushes
to it and all round about in looking for it.
Mr. Cripps " found a nest in Sylhet on the 22nd of June, snaring
the female on it. It was a heap of grass, rushes, &c, about
five inches in height, with a slight, central depression, placed
in a grass field close to water, and contained four fresh eggs."
Mr. Darling writes that he " found a nest on the 26th
August at Sultan's Battery, Wynad, elevation about 2,000 feet.
The nest was placed in some long grass by the side of a small
swamp lying between the public road and a bamboo jungle.
The nest was in the centre of a tuft of grass about eighteen
inches in diameter, and was entirely concealed. It was built
exclusively with grass, dry and decaying at base, green and
fresh at top, and was some eight inches high and six in diameter,
with a central depression two inches in depth. There were five
eggs, all covered with mud, which must have first adhered to
the feathers of the bird when she was feeding. In this same
swamp, not quarter of an acre in extent, I found fifteen shells of
three other nests that had hatched off."