SPOTTED CRAKE 169 
AVERAGE MEASUREMENTS. 
TOTAL LENGTH ... ... 10°5 in. Female smaller. 
WING ; SOO 5, 
BEAK See OCD: 5, 
TARSO- METATARSUS ses (iis yaa 
Eae aes fs 4S) x em 
SPOTTED CRAKE. Porzana maruetta (Leach). 
Coloured Figures.—Gould, ‘Birds of Great Britain,’ vol. iv, pl. 
88; Dresser, ‘ Birds of Europe,’ vol. vii, pl. 496; Lilford, 
‘Coloured Figures,’ vol. iv, pl. 56. 
This bird, intermediate in size between the Corn-Crake 
and Little Crake, is an annual summer-migrant to England, 
though not plentiful. A certain number remain with us 
during the summer to breed, others occur as birds of 
double passage in spring and autumn, while a very few 
sojourn in our Isles for the winter. In the south of 
England the Spotted Crake usually arrives about the middle 
of March (O. V. Aplin, ‘ Zoologist,’ 1890 and 1891). In 
October there is a general move southward, both of the 
birds which have remained throughout the summer, and of 
those which arrive after the nesting-season, in the early 
autumn. 
To Scotland the Spotted Crake is chiefly a passing 
visitor in autumn, but it has bred in several counties : 
specimens have been procured in the Orkneys and Shet- 
lands. In the latter Islands the latest record appears 
to be that of a female bird taken in 1901, close by Cliff 
Loch, being the fourth obtained in the Shetlands (Saxby, 
‘Zoologist,” 1901). 
In Ireland this species is apparently scarce; it has 
been obtained chiefly in autumn. However, owing to its 
skulking habits it is hard to estimate the numbers 
which are annually overlooked in the spring and early 
summer, 7.e., during the close season from shooting. 
Indeed, as pointed out by Mr. Ussher, when the sportsman 
starts ‘flapper’ shooting in early August, he invades the 
haunts of the Spotted Crake, hence the number of speci- 
mens recorded in that month. In October the birds appear 
