74 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family KALLID^E. Genus CREX. 



Subfamily 



BAILLON'S CRAKE. 



CREX BAILLONI- ( 



Rallus bailloni, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxviii. p. 548 (1819). 



Crex bailloni (Vieill.), Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 539 (1852); Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. ii. p. 

 543 (1884) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit B. pt. xx. (1891) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Brit. 

 B. p. 337 (1893), Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 84, pi. 22 (1896). 



Porzana bailloni (Vieill.), Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 275, pi. 497(1878); Yarrell, Brit. 



B. cd. 4 iii. p. 154 (1883). 

 Porzana intermedia (Hermann) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiii. p. 103 (1894) ; 



Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iv. p. 232 (1897). 



Geographical distribution British: Baillon's Crake is an irregular 

 visitor to our islands, chiefly on spring and autumn migration, most frequently 

 observed in the south. The evidence of its breeding in England appears to rest 

 upon two reputed nests and eggs obtained in Cambridgeshire during June and 

 August, 1858, and two more taken near Hickling, in Norfolk, during June and 

 July, 1866. It has been most frequently observed in Norfolk, but has occurred in 

 Suffolk, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, the Isle of Man, Somerset, and Cornwall. 

 Scotland boasts two instances one in Sutherlandshire in 1841, and another in 

 Dumfriesshire in 1842. Ireland can also claim but two cases of its occurrence. 

 Foreign: Southern Palaearctic region, and Ethiopian region. It is a summer 

 visitor to Central Europe, but does not extend beyond the Baltic; in East Russia 

 it is found breeding as far north as lat. 56. It breeds in the Spanish Peninsula, 

 the marshes of France, in Northern Italy, Hungary, and the Black Sea basin. In 

 Asia it appears to range as far east as Lake Baikal, but its limits in this direction 

 are imperfectly known. It is a resident throughout Africa and Madagascar, 

 and is a winter visitor to the Canaries and the Persian Gulf. 



Allied forms. Crex affinis, an inhabitant of New Zealand and the 

 Chatham Islands, differing only in being paler in colour, and in having a longer bill ; 

 Crex pusilla, the eastern representative of Baillon's Crake, an inhabitant of East 

 Siberia and Japan, China, India, Burma, the Philippine Islands, and Borneo, 

 distinguished by having a reddish-brown streak along the upper margin of the ear 

 coverts; Crex palustris, an inhabitant of Australia, very similar to Baillon's Crake, 

 but decidedly paler in colour, and with the lower throat and abdomen white. 



