BIRDS 341 



was killed upon the banks of the Eden in the beginning of 

 June. Though catalogued by Dr. Gough as an occasional 

 autumn visitant to the neighbourhood of Kendal, he notes that 

 a Spotted Crake was killed one year on the 5th of June. 

 T. Armstrong shot one near Monkhill Lough in the same 

 month, while at one time the species was observed at Biglands 

 Bog all through the summer, though I failed to find it there. 

 A former keeper, named Hismay, shot several early in the 

 autumn of 1881, and assured me of his belief that the birds 

 he killed had been bred on Weddholm Flow. Odd birds have 

 been killed in August in different years. The late Mr. W. 

 Dickinson recorded that his son shot a Spotted Crake in a 

 rough sievy field near Arlecdon in September 1852. There can 

 be no question that most of the Spotted Crakes obtained 

 hitherto in Lakeland were shot beside our water-courses and on 

 the swampier mosses between September and November — these 

 birds being for the most part immigrants from Northern 

 Europe. Exceptionally, the Spotted Crake winters with us. 

 Mr. Tremble has one killed in December. The late Mr. A. 

 Mason informed Mr. Mitchell that the Spotted Crake was rare 

 in Furness. Mr. Duckworth examined three of these Crakes 

 killed near Ulverston in October 1889. 



LITTLE CRAKE. 



Porzana parva (Scop. ). 



Mr. J. W. Harris informed me in 1885 that he obtained an 

 example of the Little Crake which had been captured in a 

 ditch near Cockermouth Castle in 1850. It appears from three 

 letters, written by Mr. T. C. Hey sham to the late Mr. Bell 

 (lent by Mr. H. P. Senhouse), that this specimen came under 

 the notice of the former gentleman. In a letter of March 24, 

 1852, he wrote: l A short time ago Mr. Joseph Harris was so 

 obliging as to send me a specimen of the Little Crake, Crex 

 pusilla, which had been captured near Cockermouth for inspec- 

 tion, and which I returned on the following day. As this is a 

 rather rare British Bird, it has occurred to me that it would be 

 advisable to have a drawing made of it, which in all probability 



