CORN-CRAKE. 203 



it was scarce in 1877, and unusually abundant in 1878, 

 and near Clitheroe it only recovered its position in 1 880, 

 after having been very infrequent for several seasons. 

 Since 1871 Mr. Hugh P. Hornby says {Zonl., 1873) it 

 has been rare at St. Michael's-on-Wyre, formerly having 

 been a common species. In earlier times it appears to 

 have been numerous, for Dr. Leigh writes (" Nat. Hist. 

 Lane, &c.," 1700), " The Kale is a bird about the bigness 

 of a Partridge, and is common in these parts ; it hides 

 itself in the grass, and is discovered by the snarling 

 noise that it continually makes.'" The Corn-Crake 

 has often been observed to sit upon a hedge, and emit 

 its peculiar cry, especially in the evening ; but the Piev. 

 T. Dent of Grindleton, in a letter to Dr. Garstang of 

 Clitheroe, dated May 13, 1846, described the proceedings 

 of one, which, a few days before, in brilliant sunshine, 

 had perched during the forenoon, several times, for ten 

 or twelve minutes at once, on a quickset hedge close 

 to the house-windows, and occasionally called out as 

 contentedly as if among the grass. It will take to the 

 water when necessar}^, and the late Mr. Thomas Garnett 

 of Clitheroe wrote in the Field of January 15, 1859, as 

 follows : — " In a meadow here, on the bank of the river, 

 which had been mowed a short time, a man was raking 

 the cut grass from the bank, and started a Land-rail 

 from some coltsfoot which grew there ; she merely flitted 

 across the river, and then, instead of concealing herself, 

 as Land-rails usually do, she sat on the opposite bank 

 making a very peculiar noise, and one I had never 

 heard from a Land-rail before, and I watched her with 

 some interest, when immediately about ten young ones 

 (which from their size and appearance could not have 

 been hatched more than a da}' or two) leapt from the 

 bank into the river (which was here about thirty yards 



