CREX CRES 261 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from Gafsa, South Tunisia. 



Upper-parts generally light olive-brown, darker on the crown, nape and 

 quills, and blackish down the middle of the back, with a few white Hecks ; 

 sides of head pale blue-slate ; chin and throat white ; breast and abdomen 

 slate-blue ; flanks, thighs and under tail-coverts barred with dark grey and 

 white. 



Iris red ; bill yellowish-greeD, and red at the base ; feet green. 



Total leugth H inches, wing 4-10, culmen 75, tarsus 1-20. 



Adult female differs from the male in having the uuderparts pale 

 rufescent-buff, instead of slate-blue. 



Like the preceding species the Little Crake, though not abundant, 

 is to be found in Tunisia in winter and during the periods of passage, 

 both north and south of the Atlas. It probably also breeds in the 

 Eegency in limited numbers, as, according to Loche, it is resident in 

 Algeria. There seems to be no record of its occurrence in Marocco. 

 During the winter and early spring months the species is to be met 

 with not unfrequently in the immediate vicinity of the town of Tunis, 

 and examples of it may occasionally be seen in the market of that 

 town. South of the Atlas I have obtained it in the oasis of Gafsa. 

 In the localities it frequents, in its food, and in its general habits the 

 Little Crake does not differ much, if at all, from its congeners. Its 

 note is a loud and sharp " kik, kik, kik." 



Its nest resembles that of Baillon's Crake, and its eggs, generally 

 seven or eight in number, are not unlike those of that bird, though 

 rather larger and paler. 



CREX CREX (Linnaeus). 

 LAND-EAIL. 



Rallus crex, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 261 (1766). 



Crex crex, Sharpe's ed. Layard's Birds S. Africa, p. 611 (1884) ; Sharpe, 



Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxiii, p. 82 ; Erlanger, J. f. 0. 1900, p. 46. 

 Crex pratensis, Malherbe, Fatine Orn. de VAlg. p. 33 (1855) ; Loche, 



Expl. Sci. Alg. Ois. ii, p. 343 (1867) ; Kociiig, J. f. 0. 1888, p. 265 



id. J. f. 0. 1893, p. 79. 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from North Tunisia. 

 Sides of the head pale bluish-grey ; rest of the upper-parts yellowish- 

 brown, striped with blackish-brown ; quills pale chestnut-brown ; upper 



