206 BAILLON'S CRAKE. 



valleys in the lower ranges of the Himalayas containing suit- 

 able rice swamps or marshy pools. It is pretty common near 

 Syree, below Simla. 



The full number of eggs is, I believe, eight, as we found 

 the fragments of this number of shells round a nest that had 

 hatched off. Six is the greatest number of eggs that I have 

 yet obtained, but then I have only seen two nests with eggs. 



The nest is made of rush and weed, completely concealed in 

 water-grass, wild rush, and the like, and is not unfrequently 

 placed well above the water level. At the Achalda Jhi'l, Zilla 

 Etawah, Mr. Brooks and I took a nest of this bird containing 

 three fresh eggs on August 1 6th, 1867. The nest was of rush 

 and weed, in the midst of grass and wild rice, very little above 

 the water's surface. The eggs were oval, rather glossy, of a 

 pale olive brown, thickly mottled and blurred with specks, 

 spots, and blotches (most numerous at the large ends) of a 

 darker shade of olive brown and of a sort of purplish brown. 

 At Syree, below Simla, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet, 

 I found a precisely similar nest in amongst dense rushes and 

 sedges on the margin of a small swampy pond encircled by rice 

 fields. This was on the 19th June. This nest contained six 

 deeply-set eggs. Next year in July we found no less than three 

 similar nests in the same place, all unfortunately just hatched off. 



Captain Butler writes : — " Six eggs of this species were brought 

 to me on 17th September this year (1876) at Milana, 18 miles 

 east of Deesa. They were taken by one of my own nest-seekers 

 in a small clump of bulrushes growing out in a tank ; and the 

 nest which he pointed out to me the following day was built in 

 the rushes about three or four feet above the water, and looked for 

 all the world like a miniature nest of the Common Water-Hen, 

 being composed of the same material (sedge and rush) and 

 constructed in exactly the same manner. The eggs, in size and 

 shape, are much like Rain Quail's eggs, and in colour even are not 

 very different." Hodgson says : — " Almost a permanent resident 

 in the hills and breeds in the rice fields, making a very ingenious 

 nest raised on a sort of platform of twisted rice stalks. It is 

 always found in the crops in spring and autumn,* and wherever 

 there is a crop standing." 



The egg is oval, slightly pointed towards one end ; the shell 

 of a firm and compact texture, and with a slight gloss. The 

 ground colour is a sort of a pale olive stone colour or very slight- 

 ly greenish drab, thickly freckled and mottled with faint dusky 

 clouds and streaks, which, in all the eggs that I have seen, were 

 most densely set towards the large end. The dusky markings 

 in some eggs are a sort of pale sepia, but in others have a dis- 

 tinctly purplish tinge. They appear, however, to be at all times 



* Dr. Scully tells me he only observed it in Nepal from July to November, never 

 during the first half of the year. 



