80 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Baillon's Crake. Porzana hailloni (Vieill.). 



I found a number of nests of Baillon's Crake in Hungary 

 in 1899 and 1902, and also in the south of Spain in 1900. 

 The following note of the nesting habits of this species is 

 copied from the journal I kept in 1899 : — 



" I went with two men into the swamp after the 

 Baillon's Crakes. The swamps in this district are more 

 like flooded meadows, hundreds of acres in extent, with 

 water about a foot in depth on a hard bottom, and 

 grass and water plants, with here and there a kind of 

 fine rush growing up to a height of one, two or three feet 

 above the water. 



"The two nests of Baillon's Crakes which we found 

 during the morning were in little tufts of this rush-like 

 grass, very small, and their bases just resting on the 

 water, but the cup of the nest quite dry. These nests 

 were so well hidden that they were quite invisible 

 without a very close scrutiny. In one nest there 

 were eight eggs, in the other nine. In the afternoon we 

 found a third nest, with four eggs. This nest was 

 beautifully hidden in a little tuft of fine rushes. It was 

 composed of green grass-like rush stalks, and was not more 

 than from three to four inches in diameter." 



The nests of Baillon's Crake which I found in reedy 

 pools and swamps in the south of Spain, not far from 

 Seville, were not so well concealed as those I had pre- 

 viously found in Hungary. In several cases the thin 

 reeds amongst which the nests were placed had been bent 

 over above the floating nest, at once attracting one's 

 attention to it from a considerable distance. 



In Hungary I took nests of Baillon's Crake with full 

 clutches of eggs during the last week in May, whilst in 

 Spain I found this species nesting about a month earlier. 



(To be continued.) 



