548 BRITISH BIRDS. 



shelter amongst the rank vegetation, only using its wings when absolutely 

 compelled. Hume, who found this species very common in the broads or 

 " dhunds " in Scind, writes (Game Birds of India, ii. p. 209) : " I never 

 flushed these birds out of sedge or reed, but found them everywhere 

 running about over the lotus and water-lily leaves, or swimming about from 

 leaf to leaf, and exhibiting far less timidity than Baillon's Crake. Like this 

 latter they look, when in the water, exactly like tiny Waterhens, jerking 

 their tails and nodding their heads precisely like them. But one thing I 

 noticed in this species which I never observed in either of the others I saw 

 one bird voluntarily diving several times, apparently in search of food. The 

 others will dive when a shot is suddenly fired near them or when wounded ; 

 but this bird was deliberately diving for its own amusement. When 

 pressed they rose more readily and flew more strongly than Baillon's Crake, 

 taking refuge in the thickets of tamarisk that fringed the broads and were 



studded about most of them as islands The food of this species 



seems to consist far more exclusively of insects than that of Baillon's 

 Crake. In more than a dozen specimens that I examined, the stomachs 

 contained water-bugs and beetles, small insects of all kinds, and larvse of 

 various, to me quite unknown, species, with only here and there a few 

 small black seeds and a trace of vegetable matter ; of course, as is the case 

 with Baillon's Crake, there were a good many minute pebbles or fragments 

 of quartz, coarse sand in fact, mixed with the food, in the trituration of 

 which it no doubt plays an important part/' 



Dixon writes : " I met with this little bird in the oasis of Biskra. It 

 was frequenting the short reeds round the margin of a small pool near the 

 southern extremity of this beautiful oasis. I saw the female, a diminutive 

 bird, floating amongst the short reeds a few yards from shore ; but as I 

 approached, it hid amongst the water-plants. It floated very buoyantly, 

 and every now and then seemed to pick what I suspected was an insect 

 from the reed-stems, and often buried its head amongst the grass-like weed 

 which covered the surface. Upon my nearer approach, and when I was 

 walking round the slimy edge of the pool, the cock bird rose from the 

 reeds in a slow fluttering manner, with his legs drooping downwards, and 

 was off to the other side of the pool, had I not stopped him with a successful 

 shot in mid-course. When it rose it uttered a few clicking notes, some- 

 thing like the sound made by a small ratchet- drill. When I dissected my 

 specimen, which an Arab, up to his breast in mud and water, had fetched 

 from the pool, I found its stomach contained the wing-cases of several 

 beetles and a few bits of gravel. I have no doubt that this pair of birds 

 would have bred here, but I was obviously too early for eggs." 



The call-note of the Little Crake is described by Naumann as kik-kik-kik, 

 frequently uttered. 



The breeding-season of the Little Crake is in May, and its eggs are 



