LAND RAIL — SPOTTED CRAKE. 137 



than in the river valleys; Mr, Fowler reports it as not 

 abundant in the neighbourhood of Kingham. Arriving about 

 the end of April, sometimes before the herbage is sufficiently 

 advanced to afford it cover, it is usually the middle of May 

 before it makes its presence generally kno\vn by its well- 

 known cry^ best heard in the stillness of an early summer 

 night, when I have sometimes listened to four or five ' craking ■* 

 at the same time. 



An early mention of the Corn Crake in Oxfordshire oceui's 

 in the Vinax Rermn NaUiraliiim BrUannicarum (1667), of 

 Christojiher Merrett, one of the earliest faunal works relating 

 to Great Britain, wherein the author calls it the ' Daker-hen/ 

 and believes he heard it at Wheatley, four miles from Oxford. 



Although best known as a summer resident, and to sports- 

 men in the early part of the shooting season^ the Land Rail 

 has several times been met with in mid-winter. ]\Ir. Roundell 

 informed the Messrs. Matthews that in the winter of 1846-7, 

 during a severe frost, with snow on the ground, a Land Rail 

 was constantly seen feeding with fowls in a farm-yard, in the 

 parish of Fringford; the same authors also mention occur- 

 rences in the parish of Weston-on-the-Green in December, 

 1 841, and 1848, and at Fringford in January, 1844. [Zoolo- 

 gist, p. 2535.) The Rev. H, A. Macpherson has known it to 

 occur at Oxford in the early winter of 1883 (JZS'. notes) ; Mr. 

 A. H. Macj)herson purchased a Land Rail in Oxford Market, 

 which had been sent up from Standlake, on December 

 1st, 1887, while two or three others, procured during the 

 winter months, in the north of the county, have come under 

 my own notice. 



THE SPOTTED CRAKE. 



Porzana maruetta. 

 The Spotted Crake is a spring and autumn migrant, 

 occurring in March, and again occasionally in August, but 

 more commonly in September and October. The loth March, 



