146 IVJLD-FOWL AND SEA- FOWL OF GREAT BRIT AIM 



yet the Rail travels and feeds through it all ; in 

 fact a certain amount of moisture is necessary to 

 its well-being. In the hottest part of the year 

 1893 ^^ Crakes deserted some of their well-known 

 haunts. 



I have had one of these birds come and utter its 

 "crake !" within a yard of my feet, as I stood con- 

 cealed in the thick cover that edged a woodland 

 meadow\ The cry then sounded very different from 

 its usual voice, instead of " crake-crake," it was like 

 the " querk-quark, querk-querk-quark " of a little 

 duck. Any one not used to the bird would have 

 taken it for some half-grown duck that had come out 

 in the grass snail-hunting. But although the cry of 

 the Land- rail sounds different when close at hand 

 from what it does at a distance, there is about the 

 same difference in the cry of the Cuckoo. If you 

 slip beneath some old elm where the Cuckoo is 

 shouting, its cry does not sound like " cuckoo " at all, 

 but it does directly you get the right distance off. 



As a migrant the Corn Crake ranges wide. It is 

 common on some of the sandy pastures of the 

 Hebrides, where, from what information I am able 

 to gather, they are to be far more easily got at than 

 they are in some southern counties in England. At 

 one time, before practical field ornithology had 

 come to the front, as it has done of late years, this 

 bird was supposed to hide itself for a season, and 

 to pass into a torpid state, the opinion being very 

 prevalent that, as it had never been seen either 

 coming or going, it must remain hidden somewhere 



