LITTLE CRAKE. 103 



as also the description, were taken from this bird, which 

 was most kindly lent me for my use in this work. 



In the volume of the Magazine of Natural History for 

 the year 1829, page 275, it is mentioned that Mr. James 

 Hall caught a specimen of the Olivaceous Gallinule, G. 

 pusilla, alive in a drain in Ardwick meadows, near Man- 

 chester, in the autumn of 1807. In the same work, but 

 for the year 1834, page 53, the late Mr. Hoy has recorded 

 that a Little Gallinule was shot near Yarmouth. Mr. W. 

 Borrer, jun., sent me notice that a Little Crake, Crex 

 pusilla, was taken alive on the banks of the Adur, at 

 Breeding chalk-pit near Shoreham, in October 1835 ; and 

 in 1836 Mr. W. C. Williamson recorded, in the printed 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society, that an Olivaceous 

 Gallinule had been killed near Scarborough. 



Other examples have no doubt been killed in various 

 parts of England, but it must be considered a rare bird, 

 and, perhaps, is not always clearly distinguished from the 

 species next to be described. In its food and general habits 

 this Olivaceous Crake very closely resembles the Spotted 

 and other Crakes, but is occasionally seen on the higher and 

 more cultivated soils. Montagu truly observes, that the 

 habits of the smaller species of Gallinules are their principal 

 security ; they are not only equally capable of diving and 

 concealing their bodies under water, with only the bill 

 above the surface to secure respiration, but run with 

 celerity and hide themselves amongst the rushes and flags 

 of swampy places, and are with great difficulty roused even 

 with the assistance of dogs, depending more on conceal- 

 ment in thick cover, than upon their wings, to avoid 

 danger. From these circumstances it is, that they are so 

 rarely obtained. This bird forms a nest of aquatic plants 

 among rushes, laying seven or eight eggs of a light olive- 



