. A handbook of British birds, showing the distribution of the resident and migratory species in the British islands, with an index to the records of the rarer visitants . ch it hasbeen killed seem to indicate that it is a spring andautumn migrant. On the other hand, it may be ascarce resident, whose small size and skulking habitscause it to be often overlooked. I have only oncemet with this bird in England. On the 25th I flushed one on a marsh adjoining the riverBure, about five miles from Yarmouth, but havingjust discharged both barrels at a snipe, was unableto secure it. The bird r
. A handbook of British birds, showing the distribution of the resident and migratory species in the British islands, with an index to the records of the rarer visitants . ch it hasbeen killed seem to indicate that it is a spring andautumn migrant. On the other hand, it may be ascarce resident, whose small size and skulking habitscause it to be often overlooked. I have only oncemet with this bird in England. On the 25th I flushed one on a marsh adjoining the riverBure, about five miles from Yarmouth, but havingjust discharged both barrels at a snipe, was unableto secure it. The bird rose so close to me that Icould mark the absence of white on the dorsal plum-age, and from this and its small size I felt prettysure as to the species. It dropped in the wateramongst thick reeds, and, in spite of the exertionsof my dog, eluded all attempts to make it rise again. In the adult plumage the Little Crake resemblesa miniature Land-Rail; Baillons Crake a miniatureSpotted Crake. Both have the typical beak of a Crake—Crex of Bechstein, 1803 ; Porzana of Vieillot,1816. For distinguishing characters of the twospecies see Zool., 1867, p. 974. The measurements. t WATER-HEN 225 of both species above given are taken from specimensin my collection. As a British bird the Little Crake was firstobtained by Markwick in Sussex, at Catshill, nearBattle, in March 1791, and was supposed by him tobe a Spotted Crake (see his Catalogue of SussexBirds, p. 9), but a description and coloured drawingof the bird in a MS. of Markwicks preserved in theLibrary of the Linnean Society proves it to havebeen the rarer species (see Zool., 1890, p. 343).Since Markwicks day half-a-dozen other specimensof this little bird have been procured in Sussex, asnoted by Messrs. Knox, Borrer, Ellman, Button,and Parkin [Zool., 1895, p. 309). Three have beenobtained in Yorkshire ; a few in other counties. The Little Crake has not been met with inScotland, and only one specimen has been reportedfrom Ireland. This
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