20 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
1892, near the Breakwater; it was running jerkily 
about on the mud near some reeds, flicking its tail 
and showing the w^hite patch beneath it as it went. 
Ten years later a rather curious circumstance led me 
to the discovery of what is, I think, the chief breeding- 
place of these birds. On a fine winter morning at 
Campbell's Point, Connewarre Lake, I lay basking 
in the sun near the edge of the lake, watching the 
slow evolutions of swans on the wide water. Near 
me a dilapidated boat was drawn up, its bow half 
covered by a mass of dry weed which high tides had 
washed up from the lake. Half unconsciously my 
eye rested for a moment on this, and focussed on a 
small object lying on the seaweed. Presently, con- 
vinced that this was something unusual, I got up and 
went over, to find an egg, rather like a Butcher- 
bird's, but with ground-colour and markings alike 
obscured by salt incrustation and the staining of 
weeds. Taken home and laboriously cleaned and 
revived with applications of oil, it proved to be an 
egg of the Spotted Water Crake. Clearly it had not 
been laid where I found it, and after some calculations 
as to prevailing winds and the tide, I fixed upon a 
tussocky marsh a mile away across the lake as its 
probable place of origin. 
When, after some years, the opportunity presented 
itself of making a close examination of this area, my 
surmise proved correct. We found six old nests, 
some probably years old. Each was built on the 
slightly raised earth in the very centre of a clump 
