388 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
Land-rails are more plentiful with us than in the neighbourhood 
of Selborne. I have found four brace in an afternoon, and a friend 
of mine lately shot nine in two adjoining fields; but I never saw 
them in any other season than the autumn. 
That it is a bird of passage there can be little doubt, though Mr. 
White thinks it poorly qualified for migration, on account of the 
wings being short, and not placed in the exact centre of gravity ; 
how that may be I cannot say, but I know that its heavy sluggish 
flight is not owing to its inability of flying faster, for I have seen it 
fly very swiftly, although in general its actions are sluggish. Its 
unwillingness to rise proceeds, I imagine, from its sluggish dis- 
position, and its great timidity, for it will sometimes squat so close 
to the ground as to suffer itself to be taken up by the hand, rather 
than rise; and yet it will at times run very fast. 
What Mr. White remarks respecting the small shell snails found 
in its gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it frequents corn-fields, seed 
clover, and brakes or fern, more for the sake of snails, slugs, and 
other insects which abound in such places, than for the grain or 
seeds ; and that it is entirely an insectivorous bird.—MARKWICK. 
FOOD: OF THE RING-DOVE, 
One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was 
returning from feed and going to roost. When his wife had picked 
and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and 
tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and so 
sat down to a a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled and 
provided in this extraordinary manner. 
Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when grain fails, 
can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is reason to suppose 
that they would not long be healthy without ; for turkeys, though 
corn fed, delight in a variety of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, 
endive, &c., and poultry pick much grass; while geese live for 
months together on commons by grazing shane: 
“* Nought is useless made ; 
On the barren heath 
The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop 
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf 
Sufficient: after them the cackling goose, 
Close-grazier, finds wherewith to ease her want.’ 
—: Cyder. 
WHITE. 
