•"I Fletcher, Further Notes on the Spotless Crake. 



47 



Unless (listuiix^d. the chicks remain on the nest for a day, and 

 the parents feed them there. A fellow ornithologist spent a 

 delightful quarter of an hour watching a pair of Crakes carrying 

 food to their young. He was standing above the swamp level 

 by the railing of a culvert, waiting for signs of life in the reeds 

 below. Out from the rushes walked a Spotless Crake ; it crossed 

 a strip of sand and disappeared under a clump of blackberries. 

 It reappeared with a worm, which it carried into the rushes it 

 had recently quitted. Presently its mate came out, and the two 

 kept journeying backwards and forwards, carrying the worms for 

 their familv. The call used to gather the chicks together, 



Nest and Eggs of Spotless Crake. 



FLETCHER, P. 



especially when they have been separated through fright, is an 

 exact imitation of water gurgling over stones into a rocky basin. 

 Generally speaking, these birds avoid travelling in the swift 

 flow of the water, and have runaways just on the edge of the 

 stream. Yet they do not hesitate to plunge boldly into deep 

 water should occasion arise. Even chicks two days old will 

 brave the crossing of a fairly swift channel. Spotless Crakes 

 sometimes wander away from their swamps, and I have several 

 times seen them cross the road. This they do in a crouching, 

 hesitant run, in much the same way as a Quail which has hidden 

 its brood and runs to have attention taken from their where- 



