THE SPOTTED CRAKE. 
345 
in the course of many years_, and this was near Kyeikpadein. In Tenas- 
serim Mr. Davison obtained it at Tavoy. 
This Crake occurs over the whole of India^ Ceylon and the Andamans, 
extending on the east to China^ Japan and Eastern Siberia. It has been 
met with in Borneo, and will probably be found over the whole of South- 
eastern Asia. To the west it ranges into Europe and Africa, where it is 
found over the greater part of both continents. 
This species is a great skulker and very rarely noticed ; consequently 
very little is known in India regarding its movements ; but it appears to 
be a partial migrant, visiting the plains chiefly in the cold weather. 
The specimen I shot flew out of a dense fleld of paddy. It affects 
swamps and rice-fields, also pieces of water in which the vegetation is 
thick, and it walks over the floating leaves very gracefully, swimming at 
times. It breeds in India in the rains, making a nest of reeds in the 
thick grass near the water^s surface. The eggs are said to be as many as 
eight, olive-brown, spotted with a darker shade of the same. 
697. PORZANA MARUETTA. 
THE SPOTTED CRAKE. 
Rallus porzana, Linti. Sijst. Nat. i. p, 262. Ortygometra maruetta, Leach, Syst. 
Cat. Mamjn. Birds Brit. Mus. p. 34. Porzana maruetta, Jerd. B. Ind. ii. 
p. 722 ; Bl. B. Burnt, p. 161 ; Hume 8f Renders. Lah. to Yarh. p. 293 ; Dresser, 
Birds Eur. vii. p. 267, pi. ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 113 ; Hume 8f Marsh. Game 
Birds, ii. p. 213, pi. 
Description. — Male and female. The whole upper plumage and scapulars 
rufescent olive-brown, all the feathers with a black streak down the 
middle, and all, except those of the forehead, crown and nape, with white 
streaks or spots, irregular and unevenly distributed ; the lesser and median 
wing-coverts olive-brown sparingly spotted with white ; the greater coverts 
barred with white, the interspaces more or less blackish ; tertiaries rufes- 
cent on the inner webs, olive-brown barred with white on the outer, the 
portion near the shaft more or less blackish ; primaries and secondaries 
plain brown, the first primary broadly edged Avith white ; tail blackish, 
broadly edged with rufescent olive-brown, and the central feathers irregu- 
larly marked with white near the edges ; a broad supercilium ashy grey, 
the hinder part spotted with white; sides of the head ashy brown, the 
portion under the eyes and ear-coverts spotted with white ; the whole 
side of the head occasionally spotted with white ; chin and throat plain 
ashy grey ; breast and sides of the neck rufescent brown closely spotted 
with white ; centre of the abdomen whitish ; sides of the body brown 
