KALLID^. 277 



Spotted Crake, Porzana mametta (Leach). 



[Silver Rail (on the Exe), Spotted Skitty {N.D.).'] 



A passing visitor in spring and autumn, being usually met with at the 

 latter season, i. e. from August to the middle of November, very rarely 

 remaining until December. Montagu speaks of its occurrence in spring, 

 but there is no recorded instance since his time in South Devon ; on the 

 Uraunton iJurrows it has been shot in February and March, and in our 

 own collection we have a pair which were shot near Sidmouth in Juno 

 (M. A. M.). 



The Spotted Crake used to be not uncommon on the Exe in the reed- 

 beds near Topsham, where it was well known to the gunners as the 

 " Silver Eail," and the late Mr. E. W. L. Uoss records having had six 

 freshly-killed specimens at one time in September lS39 (MS. Journ, ii. 



This pretty Crake is to be met with occasionally in suitable places in 

 North Devon during the autumn and winter. In September we have 

 flushed it in clover-helds on high ground when Partridge-shooting. We 

 have seen it on Urauntori Mai'sh and on the liraunton Burrows during the 

 winter when Snipe-shooting, and have found it in those places in March. 



In Cornwall Mr. llodd speaks of the Spotted Crake as chietly occurring 

 to Snipe-shooters duiiug the winter. In Dorset, according to Mr. Mansel- 

 Pieydell, it is rarely seen, and only as a migrant in the spring and 

 autumn. Erom our own experience in Somerset the Spotted Crake is a 

 common bird in that county in many places, and we consider it to be a 

 resident there throughout the year. In the neighbourhood of AVeston- 

 super-Mare we used to find young broods in sedgy ponds and ditches on 

 the level in Julj^ and August. We possessed a very clever setter at the 

 time, who caught the birds in the cover and brought them to our hand. 

 Only when they were very hard pressed did they ever take wing, and, 

 standing on the higher ground above the drain, we have watched them 

 threading their way through the sedge and rushes, running before our 

 dog like rats, and have had them run out from the drain and squat in a 

 little tuft of grass at our feet. Not wanting specimens, and knowing 

 them to be rank of flesh and unfit for the table, we did not molest them ; 

 but we have in earlier years fired at them and shot them when Snipe- 

 shooting near Taunton at the end of November, and when we were Sniping 

 on the peat-moors in Mid-Somerset we never went there at any time in 

 the winter without finding the Spotted Crake plentiful. On these moors 

 the bird is well known to the local shooters, tlie men who are always 

 ])row]ing after Snipe and Duck to sell to the game-shops, as the 

 "Jackymo;" and as our dear old setter used always to drop when he was 

 close to his bird, we have walked uj) to him snnictinies to find a 

 " Jackymo " sitting on the ground (piite unconcernedly l)etween his 

 outstretched fore legs. We have never wandorcd over the SoiniTset peat- 

 moors in May and June, but had we done so with our clevctr dog wo fuel 



