NORTfl AMERICAN MARSH BIRD8 337 



CKEX CKEX (Linnaeus) 

 CORN CRAKE 



HABITS 



Contributed by Charles Wendell Townsend 



The corn crake, or land rail, as it is also called, breeds throughout 

 lEurope and western Asia. It appears to be an enterprising, wide- 

 ranging bird, extending its migrations on the south to Africa, even 

 to Cape Colony, while on the north its breeding haunts reach nearly 

 to the Arctic Circle. On this side of the Atlantic it has been recorded 

 as an accidental visitor to Greenland and there is a record for Nova 

 Scotia, and one each for Falmouth, Maine; Saybrook, Connecticut; 

 Cranston, Rhode Island; Salem, New Jersey; Cape May, New Jersey, 

 and also from Bermuda. The first part of its name it owes to the fact 

 that it frequents and often nests in fields of grain, called in England 

 •corn, while the second part of its name is derived from its call which 

 •sounds like crealc or crake . 



Nesting. — Morris (1903) says that the nest of the corn crake is 

 placed among long grass or corn, in a furrow or some sHght hollow, 

 and is lined with a few of the leaves and stalks of the neighboring 

 herbage. 



Eggs. — The eggs are 7 to 10 and occasionally 12, 14, or even 18 

 in number, of a pale reddish-brown or yellowish- white color, spotted, 

 ■blotched, and speckled mth ashy gray and warm reddish brown. 

 Witherby's Handbook (1920) gives the measurements of 100 eggs as 

 averaging 37.26 by 26.75 millimeters; the eggs showing the four 

 extremes measure 41.6 by 25.9, 38.3 by 29, 34 by 25 and 34.3 by 

 S4.1 millimeters. 



Young. — The duration of incubation, according to Evans (1891), 

 is three weeks. Only one brood is raised unless the first nest is 

 destroyed. Bonhote (1907) says: 



The male, who takes no part in the incubation, is very attentive to his mate, 

 bringing her delicate tid-bits and accompanying her when she leaves the nest. 

 * * * When the yovmg are hatched the "craking" ceases, and both parents 

 brood and tend the young. These when first hatched are jet black, and become 

 fully feathered in about a month or five weeks, their wing feathers being the 

 last to grow. Although they can run and leave the nest as soon as hatched, 

 they do not feed themselves for some days, but take all their food from their 

 parents' beaks. 



Plumage.'!. — Bonhote (1907) says: 



In winter the sexes are practically identical, the upper parts being dark brown, 

 with rufous edges to the feathers; wing coverts chestnut; throat and abdomen 

 white, breast pale brown; flanks barred with brown and buff. After the spring 

 molt the male has part of the head, throat and breast gray. The female is 

 grayer than in winter, but much browner than the male, especially on the breast. 

 The young resemble the adults in winter, but the rufous margins are much 

 broader. 



