The Water Rail is included in Professor Ansted’s list, and marked as occurring in Guernsey and Sark.  There are two specimens in the Museum.

96.  SPOTTED CRAKE. Porzana maruetta, Leach.  French, “Poule d’eau marouette.”—­I have some doubt as to the propriety of including the Spotted Crake in my list, but, on the whole, such evidence as I have been able to collect seems in favour of its being at all events occasionally seen and shot, though its small size and shy skulking habits keep it very much from general notice.  Mr. MacCulloch, however, writes to me to say the Spotted Rail has been found here; and one of Mr. De Putron’s labourers described a Rail to me which he had shot in the Vale Pond in May, 1877, which, from his description, could have been nothing but a Spotted Rail.

This is all the information I have been able to glean, but Professor Ansted includes it in his list, and marks it as occurring in Guernsey.  There are also two pretty good specimens in the Museum, which I have no doubt were killed in Guernsey.

97.  LANDRAIL. Crex pratensis, Bechstein.  French, “Rale des pres,” “Rale de terre” ou “de Genet,” “Poule d’eau de genet.”—­The Landrail is a common summer visitant, breeding certainly in Guernsey, Sark, and Alderney,[16] and probably in Herm, though I cannot be quite so sure about the latter Island.  It seems to be rather more numerous in some years than others, as occasionally I have heard them craking in almost every field.  But the last summer I was in the Islands (1878) I heard very few.  The Corn Crake arrives and departs much about the same time as in England, and I have never been able to find that any stay on into the winter, or even as late as November.

It is included in Professor Ansted’s list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey and Sark.  There are two specimens in the Museum.

98.  MOORHEN. Gallinula chloropus, Linnaeus.  French, “Poule d’eau ordinaire.”—­I have not seen the Moorhen myself in Guernsey, but Mr. Couch, writing to me in December, 1876, told me that Mr. De Putron informed him that Coots, Waterhens, and Little Grebes bred that year in the Braye Pond; and Mr. De Putron, to whom I wrote on the subject, said the information I had received was perfectly correct.  I see no reason to doubt the fact of the Moorhen occasionally breeding in Mr. De Putron’s pond, and perhaps in other places in the Island, especially the Grand Mare.  But I do not believe they breed regularly in either place; they certainly did not in this last summer (1878), or I must have seen or heard them.  As far as Mr. De Putron’s pond is concerned, I could not have helped hearing their loud call or alarm note had only one pair been breeding there; I have, however, a young bird of the year, killed in Guernsey in November, 1878.

Professor Ansted includes it in his list, and marks it as only occurring in Guernsey.  There are two specimens in the Museum, probably both Guernsey killed.