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bring more birds into our northern counties. But in those years 

 when it visits us freely, I notice that it prognosticates a wet season. 

 They love to frequent the rich meadows along our river sides, 

 marshy bottoms, corn fields, or where there is a thick under-cover 

 of vegetation. In the calm soft evenings about the latter end of 

 spring, you will hear them calling their " crake-crake, crake-crake," 

 but not unmusical cry — at least to my ear. I have reason to 

 suppose that the females do not arrive till some considerable time 

 after the males, for numbers that are shot about this time all turn 

 out to be males. These birds shift about a good deal after their 

 arrival : you will hear them calling one evening in one field, and 

 the next some considerable way off, as if looking for their lady 

 loves. Their cry is very deceiving — first sounding at one end of 

 the meadow, then at the other ; sometimes at one place in the 

 middle of the field, and the next moment directly opposite. I was 

 fiist led to suppose that the bird was running in different directions 

 — and a fast runner it undoubtedly is — but such a short time 

 elapsed between the calls, and the distances were so great, that I 

 had my doubts on the matter ; then I surmised that the Corncrake 

 possessed a sort of ventriloquism. But, however, one evening, 

 through a hole in a hedge, I had a good view of one in the act of 

 calling, and I observed that it thrust its neck out and in, and kept 

 turning its head in various directions, which made the sound appear 

 to come from the different quarters. 



I have often called these birds up to where I was snugly 

 ensconced, for the purpose of close observation, and whenever 

 there was a good cover I never failed ; but you have to keep very 

 quiet, as the Corncrake is very quick at both seeing and hearing, 

 and if it gets the least glimpse of you, or hears the slightest sound 

 — the breaking of a twig, or a rustle in the grass for instance — it 

 puts its head to the ground and disappears like magic through the 

 undergrowth. The form of the bird is well adapted for this rapid 

 gliding betwixt the thickest grass or the closest sown corn, with its 

 snake-like head, and breast formed like the bow of a fast-sailing 

 ship. When uttering its cry it usually stands still, and apparently 

 with its neck thrust out and again contracted, and twisting it 



