SPOTTED CRAKE 
21 
of grass of the kind called by farmers thatch-grass, 
and cut by them for covering haystacks. The only 
way to find the nests was to part the stems from the 
top. 
One nest, more recent than the rest, and containing 
identifiable fragments of egg-shell (green on under 
surface, spotted red-brown and stone on the outer), 
exhibited a passage both ways to it through the tussock. 
This nest was about 2^ inches high off the ground, 
and had on top of it a slight half-inch-deep depression 
in which the eggs had been laid. At the base it was 
built of leaves of thatch-grass 4 to 6 inches long. 
Then came finer leaves of the same intermixed with 
grass stems, and curved right round to the shape of 
the nest. Nearing the top the materials became 
gradually finer, with less thatch-grass, till the eggs 
rested on quite fine grass, now in very short lengths 
owing to the weather breaking it up. Another nest 
was about 9 inches from the ground, and appeared to 
have been built up in successive layers, perhaps 
to escape gradually rising waters. It was December 
when I saw these nests and the ground about was all 
dry, but I conclude that water had been lying there 
when the nests were built earlier in the year. 
Farmers who cut their thatch here from about 
the end of October onwards tell me they find many 
of the nests in the cut tussocks, with eggs which the 
birds then usually desert. 
I have little information as to the occurrence of 
this bird away from the Lakes and marshlands of the 
