FULICARI^. ( 198 ) RALLID^. 



THE SPOTTED CRAKE. 



SPOTTED RAIL, SPOTTED WATER RAIL, SPOTTED WATER HEN 



SKILTY. 



Porzana maruetta. 



Where creeping waters ooze, 

 Where marshes stag7iate, and where rivers wind. 



Thomson. 



The Spotted Crake is very rarely seen in Berwickshire, 

 there being only two instances on record of it having 

 been found in the county. An adult female was shot 

 at Greenknowe, near Gordon, by Mr. John Scott-Dudgeon, 

 on the 18th of October 1873;^ and Mr. John Aitchison, 

 Duns, has informed me that a specimen of this bird, now 

 in his collection, was found dead near Duns Eailway Station 

 on the 18th of April 1887, having been killed by flying 

 against the telegraph wires. 



It is a summer visitor to this country, arriving in 

 March and leaving towards the end of October, and is 

 nowhere plentiful, but seems to be more frequently found 

 in the fens and marshes of Norfolk than elsewhere. It 

 frequents bogs, swamps, and the margins of rivers and 

 lakes overgrown with rank herbage, where it breeds ; and, 

 as the nest has been found in the adjoining county of 

 Northumberland,^ and as far north as Elgin,^ it is probable 

 that it may yet be discovered in some of the few remaining 



1 Hist. Ber. Nat. Cltib, vol. vii. p. 134. 



2 Birds of Northuntherland and Durh/xm, by J. Hancock, p. 125. 



3 Birds of the West of Scotlavd, by R. Gray, p. 333. 



