PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 557 



or blotched with rufous brown or sienna-red, chiefly towards the big end. Some 

 eggs have large blotches of red-brown, but as a rule the eggs are rather sparingly 

 marked. One egg in a clutch has frequently a distinctly bluish tinge of ground- 

 colour. (PL N.) Average size of 213 eggs, 1-42x1-02 in. [36-3x26- mm.]. 

 Incubation is performed by the hen alone, and lasts 17 days (J. L. Bonhote). 1 

 The first eggs are laid from about the middle of May onward, occasionally about 

 a week earlier, and the clutch is complete about ten days or so later. If the 

 first clutch is destroyed, a second is laid very soon afterwards. Whether a second 

 brood is reared is not conclusively proved, but many nests with fresh eggs are to be 

 found early in July, and eggs have been taken even in September. [F. c. R. J.] 



5. Food. Chiefly the larvae and pupae of various insects, including many 

 species of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera ; also Orthoptera, Arachnida, and Diptera. 

 Worms are sometimes found in considerable numbers in the stomachs of birds 

 killed, according to Naumann. Hristovic also states that he has found specimens 

 of two species of Mollusca, Limncea glabra and Planorbis rotundatus. Seeds of 

 various grasses are occasionally met with, and minute particles of stone and sand 

 usually occur. According to Oswin Lee, slugs and snails also form part of their 

 food, and Saunders also gives these, with the addition of small lizards. The 

 young are fed at first entirely by the hen, on insects for the first four days : after 

 this they pick up food for themselves, but are accompanied and tended by both 

 parents. [F. c. R. J.] 



SPOTTED-CRAKE [Porzdna porzdna (Linnaeus); Porzdna maruetta 

 (Leach). Spotted rail ; Jackymo (Somerset) ; silver rail, spotted skitty 

 (Devon). French, poule tfeau marouette ; German, gesprenkeltes Sumpfhuhn ; 

 Italian, voltolino], 



I. Description. The spotted-crake may be easily recognised by the olive- 

 brown colour of the upper parts, the white spots on the neck and fore-breast, and 

 the white-barred flanks. The sexes are alike, and there is no marked seasonal 

 change of plumage. (PL 133.) Length 9 in. [228-60]. In the male the olive- 

 brown of the crown, hind-neck, back, and wings is relieved by black striations, 

 which, on interscapulars and scapulars, are enlarged to form broad black longi- 

 tudinal stripes. The hind-neck is spotted with white ; while the scapulars have 

 long narrow streaks of white down the free edge of their inner web. The minor 

 1 Naumann erroneously gives the period as three weeks ( Vogel Mitteleiiropas, vii. p. 188). 

 VOL. III. 4C 



