BIRDS 343 



example by the vigilance of Mr. W. Duckworth, who kindly 

 introduced me to Mr. Woodburn and his mother. From them 

 we learnt the foregoing particulars of the very beautiful Little 

 Crake of which they are so justly proud, the bird being in 

 bright spring plumage and excellently stuffed. They also 

 showed us a specimen of Baillon's Crake, obtained at the same 

 clay-pits in May 1886, about a month after the Little Crake 

 had been secured. 



BAILLON'S CRAKE. 



Porzana bailloni (Vieill.). 



About the year 1864 William Little shot a very small Crake 

 near Cotehill, which he was not able to preserve, but which 

 certainly represented the present species or the last named. 

 Captain Johnson of Castlesteads, a most accomplished field 

 naturalist, assured me in 1889 that some few years earlier he 

 flushed out of thick cover a tiny Crake, which he was unable to 

 secure. The species was fully identified as a visitant to Lake- 

 land in 1886, under circumstances already alluded to. In May 

 of that year Mr. Woodburn, who had frequently hunted the 

 above-mentioned clay-pits since the capture of a Little Crake, 

 had the extraordinary good fortune to come across an example 

 of Baillon's Crake. It was flushed out of the cover by his 

 retriever bitch, and at once rose upon the wing and flew away 

 in the direction of Conishead Priory, but, returning to the clay- 

 pits, dropped into a hawthorn bush, and thence into the 

 water. The retriever followed it up and caught ifc alive, and 

 retrieved the bird to her master. Woodburn took this bird at 

 once to Mr. Kirkby, who preserved it less successfully than the 

 Little Crake, and, with questionable taste, painted its legs green, 

 to match those of the Little Crake, which he had already 

 mounted. 



WATER RAIL. 



Rallus aquaticus, L. 



In the old days, when so large a proportion of Lakeland was 

 under moss, the Water Rail probably bred with us more generally 



