184 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



power of transporting themselves from one spot to 

 another as quickly as it appears, or whether there 

 may not be some deception in this matter, is doubt- 

 ful.* The note of this bird is sometimes heard 

 during the day, but more frequently in the evening : 

 during the first half of July one year, I noticed that 

 it commenced pretty regularly about half-past nine, 

 and was heard on to near midnight. 



June 18th, 1827. To-day, whilst mowing the hay 

 in the field in front of the vicarage, we found the 

 nest of a landrail containing seven eggs : these were 

 of a very light brown, spotted and stained with rust- 

 red, and not very unlike those of the moorhen ; of 

 an oval shape, and about an inch and a half long ; 

 their weight 3 drachms 27 grains each. They were 

 fresh. laid, and not as yet incubated. The nest was 

 little else than a hollow in the ground scantily lined 

 with weeds and dead grass. The note of the old 

 bird had been heard for many days back in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the spot where the nest was found. 



SPOTTED CRAKE.f 



I HAVE known these birds killed in Bottisham 

 Fen as early as the 26th of March, and occasionally 

 during the summer and autumn on to October, but 



* Mr. Selby thinks that the bird varies its note in such a man- 

 ner as to cause it to seem to a listener to come from different dis- 

 tances, producing thus an effect similar to ventriloquism. 



t Crex porzana, Bechst. 



