250 THE FOOD OF BIRDS IN INDIA. 



1389. Hypotcenidia striata.- Blue-breasted Banded Rail. 

 Their food is very varied, chiefly, I think, worms, small snail 

 and other shells, tiny grasshoppers, and other insects, but grass- 

 seeds and vegetable substances are generally found mingled with 

 their other food, and with it an abundance of coarse sand... In 

 confinement eating greedily, worms, small snails, boiled rice, 

 vegetables, almost anything of this kind you can give them. H. 

 M. G. B. L 1, 250. Beetles appear to be the chief food. B. N. 

 H. S. J., 165. 



1392. Porzana parva. Little Crake. The food of this spe 

 cies seems to consist far more exclusively of insects than that of 

 Baillon's. Tn more than a dozen specimens that I have examined 

 the stomachs contained water bugs and beetles, small insects of all 

 kinds, and larvae of various, to me, quite unknown, species, with 

 here and there a few small black seeds and a trace of vegetable 

 matter. . .many minute pebbles. H. M. G. B. I, 210. Mainly on 

 water-insects and larva?. F. I. IV, 165. 



1393. Porzana pusilla. Eastern Baillon's Crake. Larva? 

 under lotus, etc., leaves form a large portion of their food. ' Others 

 say that this species feeds very little on anything but insects. I 

 have always found quantities of small seeds and remains of green 

 vegetable matter in the stomachs, besides tiny snail shells, water 

 beetles, and all kinds of aquatic insects and their larva?. On seve- 

 ral occasions I have found the tiny wild rice grains mixed with 

 other food, but though they keep so much about rice fields, I have 

 never noticed that they had eaten paddy, the grains being perhaps 

 too large." H. M. G. B., 1, 205. 



1394. Porzana maruetta. Spotted Crake. This bird feeds on 

 aquatic insects, and insect larva?, small worms and small snails, 

 as well as tender shoots of water herbage and grass seeds, and 

 usually seeks its food in shallow water or on moist and swampy 

 ground, etc. H. M. G. B., 1, 215. 



1396. Rallina fasciata. Malayan Banded Crake. When one 

 has recorded the food, flight, and habits of one of these crakes 



