394 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



mouth, and I have had fresh eggs from Hickling on the 

 26th of that month, and have seen the young, in their 

 black down, taken on Rockland Broad, in the last week 

 of July. With reference also to its breeding in Norfolk, 

 Messrs. Sheppard and Whitear remark, " We have seen 

 a considerable number of its eggs at Yarmouth, which, 

 as well as its young, were found in the neighboui'hood 

 of that place, and are also in possession of an egg taken 

 from a female of this species, which was killed in the 

 marshes below Norwich." It seems probable, however, 

 that they were formerly more abundant in this county 

 than they are now, as Mr. Rising informs me he has 

 killed seven or eight in a day at Horsey, where they 

 are comparatively scarce at the present time.* A few 

 years back a nest of this crake was found by Mr. A. 

 Hamond, jun., on the margin of a reed-bed on Walton 

 Common, near Westacre ; and the small chain of fens 

 on the river Thet, in the south-western part of the 

 county, is also frequented by this species. 



On two or three occasions I have shot this crake 

 when looking for snipe at Surlingham, where both young 

 and old, before their departure in October, frequent the 

 rough marshes surrounding the reed-beds ; but in these 

 localities even a dog well accustomed to this sport 

 will some times be baffled altogether by the quickness 

 with which the bird threads its way amongst the 

 tangled grasses, or slips round the little tussocks. When 

 too closely pressed, also, and compelled to take wing, it 

 not unfrequently flies so low, in a line with the dog, that 



fowl and otlier birds in ITorfolk, remarks, "The common water- 

 rails are here called rails, but the spotted rails are called quails." 

 In the Cambridgesbire and Huntingdonshire Fens, as Mr. Newton 

 informs me, spotted rails used to be known as " dotterel." 



* Mr. A. Newton tells me that the last nest he has heard of, 

 near Whittlesey Mere, where the species used to abound formerly, 

 was in 1849. 



