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up, only flies a short distance. It can, however, make more 

 prolonged flights with comparative ease. It swims well, and 

 can dive, if need be for it to do so, keeping, when still, the 

 point of the bill only above the water. 



Its food is made of water-insects and their larvae, slugs, 

 spiders, and beetles, as also of the seeds and leaves of plants. 



The note is reported as an almost indescribable sort of low 

 whistle. 



The nest of this Crake is made near the water's edge, in 

 the moist situations which the bird itself frequents, among 

 long grass, flags, or rushes, and is very difficult to find. Its 

 component parts are the stems and leaves of water-plants, 

 sedge, and grasses. 



The eggs are seven or eight to ten in number, and of a 

 regular oval form. Their colour is greyish white, spotted 

 with yellowish brown. The hen bird is said, on leaving them, 

 to add to the nest the concealment of the surrounding and 

 overhanging herbage. 



Male; length, from five inches and a half to six and a 

 half Sir William Jardine says that his Scotch specimen 

 measured only four inches in length at the most; bill, dark 

 olive green. Iris, reddish brown; head in front and on the 

 sides, bluish slate-colour; on the crown, the centres of the 

 feathers being darker, the neck on the back and nape, yellowish 

 brown; chin and throat, grey; breast, bluish slate-colour, with 

 bars of black and white on the sides; back, yellowish brown, 

 with a tinge of olive green, with round and triangular-shaped 

 white spots, surrounded with black, and some of them with 

 black centres in addition, forming a list extending downwards. 



Greater and lesser wing coverts, yellowish brown with a 

 tint of dull green, and varied with white spots and streaks, 

 barred or edged with black; primaries, dusky brown; the outer 

 edge of the first quill feather is white; secondaries, with 

 zigzag white lines bordered with black; tertiaries, yellowish 

 brown with a tinge of dull green, and spotted or streaked 

 irregularly with white, with edgings or bars of black. The 

 tail has the middle feathers dusky brown; under tail coverts, 

 unevenly barred with greyish white and dull black. Legs 

 and toes, pale yellowish or olive green reddish brown. 



The female is like the male, but her colouring is paler. 



In the young the throat and breast on the middle part 

 are white, with uneven bars of brown. The sides olive with 

 spots of white. The back has fewer of the white spots. 



