THE SPOTTED CRAKE IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 413 



September, 1875 (ib. vol. iv. p. 250). Nest taken in this county 

 (Yarrell, ut sup.). 



Loch Lomond. — Two shot Sept. 1877 (Proc. Ryl. Phys. Soc. 

 vol. iv. p. 207). Two shot, 10th Oct. 1881 (Proc. N. H. Glasg. 

 vol. v. p. 211). 



Lanarkshire. — One picked up at Possil Point, near Glasgow, 

 1st Sept. 1889 (' Science Gossip,' Nov. 1889). 



Dumbartonshire. — One 7th Oct. 1879 (Proc. N. H. Soc. 

 Glasg. vol. iv. p. 17). 



Recorded also, but without date, from Ayrshire, Ross-shire, 

 Strathbeg ; as occurring in autumn in Dumfriesshire, on Ta} r side, 

 near Tarbut. Mr. Lumsden says : — " Is seldom met with in 



Scotland In Scotland its nest has been taken only on one 



or two occasions" (Proc. N. H. Soc. Glasgow, vol. iii. p. 197). 



A young male Spotted Crake was found dead at Possil, near 

 Glasgow on the 1st Sept. 1889, as recorded by Mr. J. M. Campbell, 

 Zool. 1889, p. 392. 



It is not included by Mr. Macpherson in his account of the 

 Birds of Skye (Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc), nor by Messrs. Harvie- 

 Brown and Buckley, in their * Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer 

 Hebrides.' Neither Dunn, in his * Ornithologists' Guide to the 

 Islands of Orkney and Shetland' (1837), nor Saxby, in his 

 'Birds of Shetland,' include it in the avifauna of those islands; 

 but, according to Messrs. Baikie and Heddle (Hist. Nat. Oread. 

 p. 69), it has been observed, though rarely, on Sanday, and Mr. 

 R. Gray also mentions its occurrence in Orkney (ut sup.) ; while, 

 in ' The Zoologist' (1882, p. 21), there is a record of one shot on 

 Fetlar, an islet adjoining Unst, the northernmost of the Shetlands, 

 on the 25th October, 1881. 



Mr. Howard Saunders, summing up the range of the Spotted 

 Crake in Scotland, observes that it has nested on the east side of 

 Scotland *' as far north as Elgin, while on migration it has 

 occurred in the Orkneys and twice in the Shetlands (in October); 

 on the west it has bred in Dumfriesshire, but has not yet been 

 recorded north of the Clyde" ('Illustrated Manual of British 

 Birds,' p. 495). 



In Ireland the Spotted Crake is said to be a very rare visitor, 

 usually found in autumn (A. G. More, ' List of Irish Birds,' p. 18). 

 The nest, however, has been found in Roscommon, where the bird 

 is well known as the Little Crake (Watters, ' Birds of Ireland,' 



