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BAILLON'S CRAKE. 



PORZANA BAILL(')\I (Vieillot). 



Baillon's Crake, so named after the distinguished naturalist of 

 Abbeville, is rather more irregular in its visits to England than the 

 Little Crake, and, like that species, is generally observed in spring 

 and autumn ; but two nests with eggs, believed to belong to it, were 

 found in Cambridgeshire in June and August 1858, while two more 

 were taken near Hickling in Norfolk in June and July 1866. There 

 is no evidence that the bird is a resident, though an example is said to 

 have been captured on some ice near Cambridge in January 1823. 

 Besides Norfolk, in which about ten specimens have been obtained, 

 it has occurred in Suffolk, Derbyshire, Somersetshire, Cornwall, three 

 times in Yorkshire, and once in the Isle of Man. In Scotland one 

 has been recorded by Jardine from Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, in 

 1842, and another (in the Sinclair collection at Thurso) was prob- 

 ably killed in Sutherland in 1841. In Ireland only two authenti- 

 cated instances are known, both of them from the south. 



It is not surprising that Baillon's Crake should occasionally nest 

 with us, for it breeds annually in some parts of Holland, and 

 was, indeed, plentiful in Brabant until the fact became known to 

 collectors. In summer it is still numerous in the marshy districts 

 of France (especially on the Lower Loire), and round some of the 



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