396 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



CREX PUSILLA (Gmelin.) 

 LITTLE CEAKE. 



The first example of tlie Little or Olivaceons crake 

 known to have been procured in this county (only one 

 other having been previously noticed as killed in Eng- 

 land),* is stated in the Appendix to the supplementary 

 volume of Montagues " Ornithological Dictionary," to 

 have been discovered by Mr. Foljambe " in a poulterer's 

 shop,f early in the month of May, 1812, together with 

 some other valuable birds, which had recently been 

 received from the fens of Norfolk." The same authority, 

 also, remarks, " it is probable that the Foljambean gal- 

 linule may hereafter be found to breed in the fens of the 

 eastern parts of Great Britain/' 



In the late Mr. Lombe's MS. notes, supplied me 

 by his daughter, Mrs. E. P. Clarke, of Wymondham, I 

 find the record of "a little gallinule" shot at Buekenham 

 Ferry, in August, 1827 ; of another, immature, at 

 Neatishead, in March, 1828 ; and of a third in 1830, on 



* Under the name of little gallinule (GalUnula minuta) Mon- 

 tagu, in the Supplement to his " Ornithological Dictionary," figures 

 and describes a small crake shot near Ashburton, in Devonshire, in 

 the year 1809, as new to the British list, but as the first Norfolk bird, 

 as above stated, was subsequently described by the same author [see 

 Appendix to the Supplement] as a new species, under the name of 

 Olivaceous gallinule (Gallinulafoljamlii), he was evidently, at that 

 time under the impression that they were distinct. The Devon- 

 shire specimen forming part of Colonel Montagu's collection, is still 

 preserved amongst the " British Birds," at the British Museum. 

 This species, however, seems to have been first recognised and 

 described by Pallas, in the Appendix to the third volume of his 

 Travels, published in 1776, under the title of Eallus minutus, being 

 the same specific name as was subsequently applied to it by 

 Montagu when he, nearly forty years afterwards, discovered it 

 in England, and redescribed it as new. 



f In London according to Yarrell, but the locality is omitted 

 by Montagu. 



