CHAPTER LXXX 



THE RAILS 



The land-rail is a rare bird in the Broadland ; yet in May 

 his voice may yet be heard in grass marshes — a voice like 

 that of a bird-scarer's tool or Cheap Jack's rattle. 



A skulking bird is the corncrake, as, indeed, is every 

 rail; but if you see him within a few feet of you, he is 

 bound to escape through the thick brown grass. Even in a 

 turnip-field, which he sometimes frequents, he is hard to 

 put up; he trusts to his feet in all but cornfields, where he 

 seems to rise on the wing more frequently, as the gunners and 

 harvesters know. In truth, the harvesters can catch him 

 when the yellow swathes lie in golden bands athwart the 

 marshes — for if he do not rise, he will run for the nearest 

 swathe, and for once the men catch him and eat him after- 

 wards in a dumpling or on toast, for he is capital, though 

 overrated. Mowers in the haysel come across his nest, but 

 I have never seen one ; indeed the mowers, those chiefs of 

 bird-nest finders, rarely come across them to-day, even in 

 long-prolonged droughts, when they are commonest. When 

 the harvest is stacked, however, the gunners have a better 

 chance ; and in September and October some are shot on 

 the bare fields, and those that escape the deadly shot wisely 

 go across the sea to far serener climes. 



The Spotted Rail 



Is the only name by which the spotted crake is known to the 

 Broadsmen, for he is rarely seen to-day ; indeed, the water-rail 

 is far rarer to-day than the spotted rail was fifty years ago. 



