SPOTTED CRAKE. 395 
it pitches again before a safe shot can be had, and then 
most probably it drops amongst the reeds and is seen no 
more. On the 4th of September, 1861, four were shot 
at Stalham on the same day, but I find from my notes 
for the last twenty years, that the large majority of the 
specimens brought to our bird-stuffers for preservation 
have been killed between the 2nd and 29th of October. 
On the 22nd of October, 1856, one old bird and three 
young of the year were shot at Rockland. About that 
time, I believe, the greater number take their departure 
for the south, but stragglers are occasionally met with 
throughout November, of which I have records in 
different seasons, on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 30th. I 
have also been assured by the marshmen that this 
crake may be found at times in mid-winter, but one 
shown me in the flesh, on the 2nd of December, 1868, 
is the latest I have ever known. As the birds observed 
thus late in the year are almost invariably in immature 
plumage, they are most probably the result of a late 
hatch, and therefore unable to join the earlier migrants. 
In the “ Zoologist ” for 1847 (p. 1693), Mr. Alfred 
Newton records the fact of a bird of this species having 
been picked up dead at Thetford, by the side of the 
Norfolk Railway, killed by fying against the telegraph 
wires. “One wing was broken, and the head bared of 
a considerable quantity of feathers.” This occurred, as 
he has since informed me, on the 26th of October, 
1846, and is no doubt the same mentioned in Morris’s 
“British Birds” (vol. v., p. 12), although the date is 
wrongly quoted and the authority omitted. 
There is little if any distinction in the plumage of the 
sexes, but the young before their departure in autumn, 
as described by Selby, have “the upper parts of a deeper 
oil green, and the white more dispersed in the form of 
small spots.” Besides other minor differences, also, the 
bill wants the red colour at the base which marks the 
adult bird. 
3 E 2 
