GRALLATORES. R A L L ID £ .
BAIIiLON’a CRAKE.
Crex Baillonii, BaMion^s Crake, Seiby, jj^t.'Ornith. vot.'ii. p.'182*.*^
,,,, ,, ' Jenyns^ Brit. "V|£rt. p. 219.
Zapornia ,, ,, >\ Goijim, Birds-of-Europe, pt. lx. , „
Gallinuld „ Poule d’eau Baillon, Temm. Man. d’Ornilh. vol, ii.‘p: 692. -
One of the earliest notices of the occurrence, of this bird
with which I am acquainted,-is published in the sqcond^o-
lume of the Zoological Journal, page 2-79, on* the exhibition
of a specimen,at the Zoological Club of »the Linnean Society,
which belonged to Dr. Thackeray, the Provost | | | : King’s
College, Cambridge, and which was caught upon some ice at
Melbourne, about nine miles south of Cambridge* in January
182& 44 To this spot, originally fen- land,rthe poor bird
had resorted, in an inclemenf season, to obtain .a, meal; but,
having wandered far from J ts native and more congenial latitude,
was so exhausted by want of food, or the low temperature
of the season, or the combined effects of both, as to
allow itself to be taken alive.by the hand.” In the third
vobjmeof the same Journal, page 498, G. T. Fox, Esq. of
Durham, has recorded another specimen of this bird, which
was k ited within three-miles of Derby, in November 1821.
In the catalogue of the Birds; of Norfolk and Suffolk, published
in the fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the
Linnean' Society, the authors; in reference to Baillon’s- Crake,
'say,-,;44 We have met with a. specimen* of this bird in the collection
of- Mr. Crickmore,i^of .Beccle's, which was shot near
that town.;Wke£ttroat, neckband belly-are ash colour; the
sides nnd under tail-coVerts barred and spotted with black
and white ^/-thie^ back aS» like that of the Spotted* Gallinule ;
but this bird is considerably smaller than that speciitf.- An
extremely small Gallinule,, probably of this same kind, was
shot at Naeton in Suffolk, many years* since, and was in’ the
.possession ©flthe late John lemony Esq.”
: The Rev. Richard Lubbock wrote me from Norfolk as
f o l l o w s “ Onitfe 2nd of April 18&% a fen-man of my acT
quaintance killed an adult male of- this-Species, upon a marsh
at Dilham in this - county^ it* k now in my possession.
Three years previously he had killed« another at Barton, the
adjoining parish^-it.,was late in autumn, and the .bird was
in immatufb'plumage. This spebies'is probably not so rare
as it is «Supposed -t©' b e ; when shooting in parts of France
and Switzerland, where it is not uncommon, I could never
manage to get more than one specimen, its power of running,
sculking, and general* Concealment is‘S# great. I In September
1840,“ -Francis Edwards, Esq. of Brislington, near Bristol,
vserit-me word that an adult female of this species had been
killed a short time before;* on' Some marshy ground near
Weston super mare, a small watering-place on the British
Channel. This specimen Mr. Edwards was kind enough to