LITTLE CRAKE. 
225 
to the water as soon as hatched. In its habits this 
species exhibits great circumspection ; it is wild and 
solitary, concealing itself, and skulking under any 
cover, and very difficult to rouse. It is scarce in 
Great Britain, and is a migrative species, appearing 
with us in April and disappearing in October : it is 
also found in France and Italy in the spring, but 
sparingly, and in other parts of Europe, the south 
of Russia, and in Siberia. Its food consists of in- 
sects and small slugs ; and in defect of these, aquatic 
vegetables^ and their seeds. 
LITTLE CRAKE. 
"^(Ortygometra minuta.) 
Or. Jiisca snhtus rirfescens, dorso alisque macidis striisque pallidis, 
siqjercU'iis fasciisque hypochondriorum caudcBque albis. 
Brown Crake reddish beneath, with the back and wings with pale 
spots and stria?, the eyebrows and fascine on the flanks and 
tail white. 
Rallus minutus. GmeL Syst. Nat. 1. 719. Lath. hid. Orn. 2. 
7G1. 
Le petit Rale de Cayenne. Biif. Ois. 8. 167- Buff. PI. Enl. 
847. 
Little Rail. Lath. Gen. Syn. 5. 239. 
A VERY small species, measuring only five inches 
in length : its beak is brown : over the eye is a white 
streak : the upper parts of the body are brown ; the 
back and scapulars darkest, and streaked with white : 
V. XII. r. I. 1'5 
