at 
0 RALLUS AQUATICUS. 
that it is very plentiful in Cambridgeshire!. Mr. Yarrell also 
mentions the difficulty of procuring specimens. Harvey [of Bait’s 
Bight] valued the eggs of the Land-Rail four times as much as these. 
They are less than Corn-Crakes’, and the marks not so generally 
distributed in streaks. The ground-colour varies from a white to a 
rich cream-colour, and the markings vary from small and numerous 
to large and thinly distributed spots. 
§ 3121. Mneteen.—1843. 
(Most, if not all, from Whittlesey Mere in 1848, during Mr. Wolley’s first 
visit there. | 
§ 3122. Seven.—Cambridge or Huntingdonshire, 1844. 
I have seen great numbers of Water-Rails’ eggs this year. They 
breed much earlier than the Corn-Crake, and winter in the Fens. 
[Apparently obtained from Osborne of Fulbourne, who no doubt got them 
from the Whittlesey neighbourhood, where they were then so abundant, and, 
like those of the Spotted Crake, called “ Dotterels.”] 
§ 3123. Fourteen—Whittlesey, 1848. From Mr. Thomas 
Smith, through Mr. A. Newton, 1801. 
I value these eggs as perhaps the last we shall obtain in this 
country, for Whittlesey Mere is drained. 
(These from a number which I bought in 1851 from Smith, the butler 
of Pembroke Hail (cf. § 3101). He gave fourpence each for them to Tom 
Rawlinson (§ 1096). The draining of the mere was completed in 1851. I let 
Mr. Wolley have eight of them, keeping six for our own collection. } 
1 (This should rather be Huntingdonshire, but at the time Mr. Wolley perhaps 
hardly appreciated the difference. In the account of this species published in 
1845 in the second edition of his work (Kegs Br. B. i. p. 822) Mr. Hewitson 
wrote :-—“ Mr, Wolley, to whom I am indebted for a large series of the eggs, tells 
me they are so abundant in some parts of Cambridgeshire that the dealers sell 
them for one-third less than those of the Cornecrake; that one man near 
Cambridge had no less than fifty ; and that he has seen many on those strings of 
birds’ eggs which are hung up in the houses as a trophy of the bird-nesting 
exploits of the boys of the country.” —Ip. | 
