72 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Family EALLIDiE. Genus Crex. 



Subfamily BALLING. 



CAROLINA CRAKE. 



CEEX CAEOLINA.— (LwM«Ms). 



Rallus Carolina, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 363 (1766). 



Crex Carolina (Linn.), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. ii. p. 541 (1884); Dixon, Nests and 



Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 359 (1894). 

 Porzana Carolina (Linn.), Siiarpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiii. p. 97 (1894); Sharpe, 



Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iv. p. 230 (1897). 



Geographical distribution. — Snfe/i.- Naturalists, for some inscrutable 

 reason, decline to admit the Carolina Crake to be an established British species; 

 but the known wandering habits of birds of this family, in addition to the fact of 

 its occurrence in Greenland, seems strong evidence in favour of its having 

 reached our islands voluntarily. An example of this Crake was shot near Newbury, 

 in Berkshire, on the river Kennet, and was exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society, on the 14th of February, 1865, by Professor Newton (Conf. Proc. Zool. 

 Soc, 1865, p. 196). Foreign: Nearctic and Northern Neotropical regions. The 

 Carolina Crake is a summer migrant to the Northern United States and to Canada, 

 up to lat. 62°; it winters in the Southern States, in Mexico, Central America, the 

 West Indies, and the northern parts of South America. 



Allied forms.— None more closely allied than Crex porzana and Crex 

 fluminea, already mentioned in the preceding chapter. 



Habits. — The spring migrations of this Crake appear to last about a month 

 or six weeks, commencing early in April and ending about the third week in May. 

 Professor Cooke, in his interesting, systematic report of bird migration in the 

 Mississippi Valley during the years 1884 and 1885, has recorded in connection 

 with the passage of this Crake that it formerly passed unobserved over the town 

 of Winona, until in the former year an electric light was erected. The result was 

 most marked. On the night of the 21st of May they were the most numerous of 

 the many birds that were killed or wounded by striking the light tower, and 

 were counted in hundreds fluttering round the brilliant lamp. The fall migration 

 begins during the first half of August and is continued until the beginning 

 of October. As in so many other species, its numbers are most marked in 

 autumn. The Carolina Crake is just as secretive in its habits as its British 

 ally, and spends most of its time skulking in reed beds and swamps, rarely 

 presenting itself to view, save when flushed, or when crossing some more open 



