334 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 

 Family RALLID/E. Genus Crex. 



CORN CRAKE. 



Crex pratensis, Bechstein. 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, end of May and in June. 



British breeding area : The Corn Crake is widely 

 and generally distributed throughout the British Islands, 

 including the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Channel 

 Islands. 



Breeding habits : The Corn Crake is a summer 

 migrant to the British Islands, reaching them in April 

 and May, but a few individuals winter in them, probably 

 birds from more northern localities. The favourite 

 breeding-haunts of this familiar bird are grass lands, 

 especially hay-meadows, and fields of growing grain, 

 pulse, and clover. I have also, in Devonshire, remarked 

 its partiality for osier-beds, especially such as are clothed 

 with a good undergrowth of rank grass and weeds. The 

 Corn Crake is neither gregarious nor social during the 

 breeding season, although I have known two nests in one 

 field on several occasions ; in one instance two were 

 close together, only a few yards between them. This 

 species pairs annually. The nest is invariably made on 

 the ground, usually amongst clover or mowing grass, 

 and far less frequently amongst grain or pulse. I have 

 known it in osier-beds." It is a well-made structure, 

 made externally of coarse and dry stems of herbage and 

 a few dry leaves, and lined neatly with fine grass, much 

 of it semi-green. The bird sits closely, often losing its 

 life, as it broods over its eggs, from an unlucky stroke 

 of the scythe or modern mowing-machine. I have 

 known this species remove its eggs to a safer position 



