self, weighing about four ounces and
a half (Bewick), and rarely uses the wing, flying very slowly. I
imagine the 'lath-like' must mean, like the more frequent epithet
'compressed,' that the bird's body is vertically thin, so as to go
easily between close reeds.

118. We will try our twelve questions again.

1. Country. Equally numerous in every part of Europe, in Africa,
India, China, and Japan; yet hardly anybody seems to have seen it.
Living, however, "near the perennial fountains" (wherever those may
be;--it sounds like the garden of Eden!) "during the greater part of
the winter, the birds pass Malta in spring and autumn, and have been
seen fifty leagues at sea off the coast of Portugal" (Buffon); but
where coming from, or going to, is not told. Tunis is the most
southerly place named by Yarrell.

2. Food. Anything small enough to be swallowed, that lives in mud or
water.

3. Form and flight. I am puzzled, as aforesaid, between its likeness
to a ball, and a lath. Flies heavily and unwillingly, hanging its legs
down.

4. Foot. Long-toed and flexible.

5. Beak. Sharp and strong, some inch and a half long, showing
distinctly the cimeter-curve of a gull's, near the point.

6. Voice. No account of.

7. Temper. Quite easily tamable, though naturally shy. Feeds out of
the hand in a day or two, if fed regularly in confinement.

8. Nest. "Slight, of leaves and strips of flags" (Gould); "of sedge
and grass, rarely found," (Yarrell). Size not told.

9. Eggs. Eight or nine! cream-white, with rosy yolk!! rather larger
than a blackbird's!!!

10. Brood. Velvet black, with white bills; hunting with the utmost
activity from the minute they are hatched.

11. Feathers. Brown on the back, a beautiful warm ash gray on the
breast, and under the wings transverse stripes of very dark gray and
white. The disposition of pattern is almost exactly the same as in the
Allegretta.

12. Uses. By many thought delicious eating. (Bewick.) The fact is, or
seems to me, that this entire group of marsh birds is meant to become
to us the domestic poultry of marshy land; and I imagine that by
proper irrigation and care, many districts of otherwise useless bog
and sand, might be made more profitable to us than many fishing-grounds.

VI.

PULLA AQUATICA. WATER-HEN.

(_Gallinula Chloropus.--Pennant, Bewick, Gould, and Yarrell._)

119. 'Green-footed little cock, or hen,' that is to say, in English;
only observe, if you cal