242 GRALL^E. 



cream colour into fawn colour on the breast, and again into 

 olive brown, marked with white, and darker brown on the 

 lower part of the belly, the sides of the thighs, the vent, 

 and the under tail coverts. The bill and legs bright green, 

 the latter bare to a considerable height above the tarsal 

 joints. 



The three species last enumerated have all been named 

 and described as gallinules, on account perhaps of their being 

 found in haunts similar to those of that genus ; but the form 

 and all the essential characters of the birds entitle them to 

 be classed with the crakes. 



This species, like the one immediately preceding, is said to 

 inhabit the thick herbage by the sides of streams and waters 

 in the south of Europe, the places to which, in all probability, 

 the crake retires when it takes its departure from Britain. 

 As their history stands at present, they appear somewhat 

 anomalous : and on that account they are at least worth 

 searching for. The whole genus are so fond of concealment, 

 that even the corn-crake, if its clatter did not betray it, 

 might come and go in thousands and one never be a whit the 

 wiser. There is little probability that either of the smaller 

 species, which, judging from the entireness of their plumage, 

 are birds of a more tropical character than the corn-crake, 

 spend the winter with us, inasmuch as that crake which 

 ventures northward in the summer, to join the chorus of 

 gulls and other wave-taught vocalists in serenading the 

 Udallers of Ultima Tliule, spurns the roses and myrtles of 

 Dorset and Devon in the winter, and seeks the land of olives 

 and oranges ; but really the times, places, and circumstances, 

 although they cannot be received as evidence of the fact, all 

 point strongly to the probability, that both birds are summer 

 visitants, of which a sprinkling at least may be expected in 

 the south of England every season. 



