baillon''s crake. 21 



tilde, was so exhausted by want of food, or the low tempera- 

 ture of the season, or the combined effects of both, as to 

 allow itself to be taken alive by the hand." In the third 

 volume of the same Journal, page 493, G. T. Fox, Esq. of 

 Durham, has recorded another specimen of this bird, Avhich 

 was killed within three miles of Derby, in November 1821. 

 In the catalogue of the Birds of Norfolk and Suffolk, pub- 

 lished in the fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society, the authors, in reference to Baillon's Crake, 

 say, " We have met with a specimen of this bird in the col- 

 lection of Mr. Crickmore, of Becclcs, which was shot near 

 that town. The throat, neck, and belly are ash colour ; the 

 sides and under tail-coverts barred and spotted with black 

 and white ; the back is like that of the Spotted Gallinule ; 

 but this bird is considerably smaller than that species. An 

 extremely small Gallinule, probably of this same kind, was 

 shot at Nacton in Suffolk, many years since, and was in the 

 possession of the late John Vernon, Esq." 



The Rev. Richard Lubbock wrote me from Norfolk as 

 follows : — " On the 2nd of April 1833, a fen-man of my ac- 

 quaintance killed an adult male of this species, upon a marsh 

 at Dilliam in this county; it is now in my possession. 

 Three years previously he had killed another at Barton, the 

 adjoining parish ; it was late in autumn, and the bird was 

 in immature plumage. This species is probably not so rare 

 as it is supposed to be ; when shooting in parts of France 

 and Switzerland, where it is not uncommon, I could never 

 manage to get more than one specimen, its power of running, 

 sculking, and general concealment is so great." In September 

 1840, Francis Edwards, Esq. of Brislington, near Bristol, 

 sent me word that an adult female of this species had been 

 killed a short time before, on some marshy ground near 

 Weston super mare, a small watering-place on the British 

 Channel. This specimen Mr. Edwards was kind enough to 



