340 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



looking-glass, I was able to watch its actions unobserved. It 

 had a hungry appetite, and consumed earthworms with avidity, 

 picking out the larger individuals, which were bolted head first. 

 The worms resisted, and strove to return, but Crex kept them 

 down with resolution. The smaller worms were generally 

 seized about the middle, and, with the aid of a slight jerk, they 

 disappeared in a twinkling. He drank or sipped water by 

 dipping his bill into the saucer, and then raised his neck ; 

 but did not throw back the head like a fowl in order to allow 

 the liquid to trickle down the gullet. At other times he 

 stalked round the cage, first putting down one foot and then 

 the other. His plumage was not worn tightly packed together 

 as represented in most stuffed specimens, but the feathers hung 

 loosely from the body ; he was fond of ruffling up the feathers 

 of the back, occasionally shaking his tail. The Corn Crake 

 usually limits its stay with us to a period of about five months, 

 from the third week of April until the close of September ; but 

 stragglers have been killed up to the end of the year in 

 Lakeland, thus extending its longest sojourn among us to eight 

 months, or two-thirds of the year. 



SPOTTED CEAKE. 



Porzana maruetta (Leach). 



A few Spotted Crakes pass through Lakeland in the spring 

 of the year, but their presence at that season has been less 

 frequently noticed since a close-time was established. The late 

 Sam Watson assured me that an acquaintance of his who 

 possessed a dog clever at flushing Crakes used to shoot one or 

 two Spotted Crakes on the Petteril every spring, and that on 

 one occasion this man shot no fewer than five birds in a 

 morning. Mr. Cowan possesses a specimen killed near Carlisle 

 in March. In 1888 a single bird (evidently on migration, as it 

 was shot as soon as it alighted on the beach) was killed near 

 Silloth on March 31. Many of our mosses appear to resemble 

 pretty closely the haunts of this Crake, which I have visited in 

 Holland; nor can we doubt that the species has occasionally 

 bred with us. The only specimen that Dr. Heysham examined 



