166 RALLID AG 
from Europe, or Barbary. An example has even been 
recorded from New South Wales” (Rec. Austral. Mus. i, 
. 82). 
; It is hardly less surprising that anyone who has ever 
taken the trouble to carefully examine and to weigh a dead 
Corn-Crake can possibly doubt its power of flight. Com- 
pared, for instance, with that of many other migratory 
species, we find that its body is proportionately lighter in 
weight, its pinions, though not long and pointed, are of 
considerable breadth and “strength, while its narrow com- 
pressed neck and body offer little resistance to the velocity 
of its flight. 
Fic. 20,-HEAD OF CORN-CRAKE. 12 Nat. size. 
Voice.—I shall not attempt to describe in syllables the 
familiar rasping call-note of the male Corn-Crake. It can 
be readily reproduced by drawing a stick across the teeth 
of a comb. By this form of mimicry the bird may be 
oradually attracted to within a few yards, and the performer 
who keeps still and hes low in a ditch will be amused by 
watching how a suspicious old male will tread cautiously 
through the grass until he comes into full view at the edge 
of the meadow. Here he may be seen commencing to 
‘crake’ defiantly in answer to his supposed rival. But I 
have found from experience that the artificial voice will 
carry much further if, instead of using a stick and a comb, 
the edge of a flat dry bone (e.g., a piece of a rib of an ox), 
about six inches in length, is passed over the edge of 
another bone which has been notched and toothed like a 
saw. By such a contrivance I have coaxed a Corn-Crake 
from one end of a large field to another. The voice is 
exceedingly powerful, and when heard close at hand, seems 
by its vibrations almost to shake the ground on which the 
