546 BRITISH BIRDS. 



The general colour of the upper parts of the adult male Baillon's 

 Crake is pale chocolate-brown, most of the feathers having a nearly black 

 centre with a broken white streak along it. The primaries and secondaries 

 are brown, but the outer web of the first primary is white ; the forehead, 

 eye-stripe, and the whole of the underparts are slate-grey, shading into 

 black, transversely barred with white on the flanks, belly, and under tail- 

 coverts. Bill green, darker at the tip ; legs, feet, and claws olive ; irides 

 crimson. The female differs from the male in having the lores and the ear- 

 coverts brown instead of slate-grey, in having the general colour of the 

 upper parts huffish brown, and in having the underparts paler and suffused 

 with brown on the sides of the neck and breast. The winter plumage of 

 the male is intermediate between the summer plumage of the male and 

 that of the female. Young in first plumage very closely resemble females, 

 but the slate-grey of the underparts is replaced by greyish white, and the 

 breast is mottled with brown. After the first spring moult young males 

 resemble adult females, and young females are intermediate between them 

 and young in first plumage. Young in down are black. 



Baillon's Crake is very nearly allied to the Spotted Crake; in both 

 species the outer web of the first primary is white ; but Baillon's Crake is 

 much the smaller bird, has no spots on the sides of the throat or breast, 

 and the under tail-coverts are black barred with white, instead of uniform 

 buff. The Little Crake is a much more distantly allied bird ; it is some- 

 what intermediate in size between the two species, but the white spots on 

 the upper parts are confined to the centre of the back, the white margin to 

 the outermost primary is entirely absent, and the flanks are slate-grey 

 instead of black barred with white, the under tail-coverts only being black 

 tipped with white. 





