LITTLE CRAKE. 
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white ; the greater coverts, primary-coverts, and quills with 
more or less distinct white spots at the tips. 
Nestling.— “ Covered with black down with a greenish gloss ; 
legs bluish-grey ” ( IC Eagle Clarke). 
Range In Great Britain. — A spring and autumn visitor to our 
islands. No authentic instance of its having bred in England 
has been noted. Though it has been recorded from many 
counties, and especially from Norfolk, in Scotland and in 
Ireland the species has occurred but once. 
Range outside the British Islands. — The Little Crake breeds 
throughout Central Europe and Russia, and is believed to 
have nested in Southern Sweden. In Italy it also breeds, but 
in other parts of the Mediterranean it is only known as a 
migrant, though resident again in Algeria. Its eastern range 
extends to Central Asia and Afghanistan, and it winters in 
North-Western India and in Equatorial Africa. 
Habits. — Mr. A. O. Hume thus describes the habits of the 
Little Crake in Sind ; — “ I never flushed these birds out of 
sedge or reed, but found them everywhere running about over 
the lotus and water-lily leaves, or swimming about from leaf to 
leaf, and exhibiting far less timidity than Baillon’s Crake. 
Like the latter, they look when in the w'ater exactly like tiny 
Water-hens, jerking their tails and nodding their heads exactly 
like the latter. One thing I noticed in this species which I 
never observed in either of the others — I saw one bird volun- 
tarily diving several times, apparently in search of food. The 
others will dive when a shot is suddenly fired near them, or 
when they are wounded, but this bird was deliberately diving 
for its own amusement. When pressed, they rise more 
steadily and fly more strongly than Baillon’s Crake, taking 
refuge in the thickets of tamarisk that fringe the broads, and 
are studded about most of them as islands. The food of 
this species seems to consist far more exclusively of insects 
than that of Baillon’s Crake. In more than a dozen specimens 
which I examined, the stomachs contained water-bugs and 
beetles, small insects of all kinds, and larvse of various, and to 
me quite unknown, species, with here and there a few small 
black seeds and a trace of vegetable matter. Of course, as is 
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