Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/191

Rh to get their offspring down somehow from this perilous height. I was unfortunately absent when the feat was accomplished, but a malee assured me that he saw the old birds bringing the young ones down in their beaks. The White-breasted Waterhen, like the rest of its tribe, trusts more to its legs than its wings, but it will fly sometimes for a short distance, its legs hanging down like tasselled cords.

Among other species of Waterhens I think the Pigmy Rail (Porzana pygmaea) is the one most likely to be met with in Bombay. It is a dainty little bird about the size of a Quail, though very different in shape. The upper parts are olive brown, spotted with white and black, while the breast, throat and underparts are bluish grey. The bill is green. I believe I have seen this bird in one of the cages of a strolling bird-seller, but that was many years ago.

The Coot must come in here, as I am following Jerdon, though for the purposes of these papers I would rather leave it till we come to the wild ducks, with which it is much more likely to be confounded. Many a Coot is not only shot, but eaten, for a duck by sportsmen of the class that shoot Snippets for Snipe. It is not a Duck, however. Its bill is not the flat bill of a Duck and, ergo, its diet is not the same, nor its flavour; nor are its feet webbed like a Duck's, but each separate toe is furnished with a curious fringe of webbing. It is, in fact, a Waterhen which, being specially equipped for swimming, does not live about water but in it. Its favourite haunts are large tanks, or sheets of water, with reedy and weedy margins. Swimming about among these it looks very like a Duck and at a distance may be mistaken by anybody;