Page:The Emu volume 13.djvu/262



over a radius of two miles, taking the school swamp as a centre.

The illustration of nest and eggs (three) of the Spotless Crake was procured for me through the kindness of Mr. A. W. Swindells, of Hobart. The photographer was Mr. J. W. Beattie.

rainy season commences as a rule early in April, the annual fall being 36 inches and upwards, and the country, generally speaking, is well supplied with swamps and wet ground. During the months of January, February, and March, however, our climate is usually hot and dry, when all surface water quickly disappears. The haunts of the Spotless or Tabuan Crake (Porzana immaculata) and other semi-aquatic birds are subject, therefore, to a certain amount of local change.

In the wet months—and these include the breeding season—pairs are more frequently met with in what may reasonably be termed flooded ground rather than around the large and more or less permanent swamps. My first experience of the Spotless Crake occurred in the hot, dry weather, when I picked up a chick only a few days old in a wheel-rut near Torbay Junction, about 10 miles west of Albany. Probably others of the brood were concealed in the long grass close at hand. This was in March, 1905. The general appearance of this newly-hatched chick was black, with just a tinge of deep brown in the thick down clothing the body. The legs, feet, and beak, too, were black, with just enough gloss to suggest they had been black-leaded.

Again, in December, 1911, I was engaged in ornithological work within a couple of miles of Albany, when I was shown a pair of rough skins of the Spotless Crake. These were the remains of birds brought in from a neighbouring thicket by a cat. At the time of my visit to this particular locality, a third example was brought home by the same cat; I secured this, practically undamaged.

The following year a pair of small Crake's eggs, from a clutch of four (unblown), were given to me. The identity of these eggs, which are a little larger than typical eggs of the Spotless Crake, is not absolutely certain, however. The same season, in searching for nests of the Grass-Bird (Megalurus striatus), I heard peculiar but Crake-like notes issuing from a large clump of reeds. I enticed the creatures out by imitating the notes as well as I could, and had a good view of a Spotless Crake a few feet away. I could clearly distinguish the peculiar pinkish-red of the irides.

In November, 1913, I had occasion to camp on an extensive