* * * A SPOTTED CRAKE.
From time to time accidental discoveries in natural history suggest to us that in spite of the many observers some animals may be much commoner than we suppose. For example, last year I spent a flay looking for that very rare bird; the spotted crake, which was known to be nesting by a certain marsh in the West Country. The presence of such a bird anywhere is an event. Yet the other day in my neigh- bourhood a boy found a dead bird (killed, I think, by telegraph wires) which proved to be a spotted crake. It was lying by the roadside in a district where the species had never been so much as heard of. Similarly, not long since a naturalist found the wings of moths he had never supposed
to exist in the neighbourhood. They were dropped by bats which quartered- doubtless a stratum of air denied to the naturalist. It is seldom safe to describe any species, if it his moderately furtive habits, as extinct. The wild cat, supposed extinct, suddenly reappeared in Scotland and w6,8 presumably born of native parents. An animal that I always expect to hear of again in middle England is the polecat, not long ago one of the really common vermin.
Previous page
