SPOTTED CRAKE 



SPOTTED RAIL SPOTTED WATER-HEN WATER-CRAKE 

 SPOTTED GALLINULE WATER-RAIL. 



PLATE CLXXIX. FIGURE II. 



Crex porzana, SELBY. JENYNS. 



Porzana maruetta, .... DRESSER. 

 Ortygometra porzana, .... GRAY. 



THE nest of this Crake is put together of the larger 

 and smaller stalks of rushes, reeds, and other water- 

 plants, in marshy places, among beds of reeds, and often 

 at the water's edge, and is thickly lined with soft grass, 

 and the edges well rounded. They are at times destroyed 

 by the rising of floods. 



The eggs are as many as from eight, ten, or twelve in 

 number, and even eighteen have been found together, but 

 these doubtless have been the produce of two birds. They 

 are of a pale reddish-white or olive-buff ground colour, 

 spotted and speckled with dark reddish brown. The hen sits 

 for three weeks to hatch the eggs. The young quit the 

 nest very soon after being hatched. 



One brood only is reared during the year, but if the 

 first nest is destroyed a second clutch of eggs is laid. 



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