176 Among the Birds in Northern Shires. 



sion to a sapling oak growing in a hedgerow, and to 

 use one special branch from which to soar and sing 

 throughout the early summer. These birds also 

 frequent the corn-fields, and eat the soft milky grain, 

 but their usual food consists of insects, worms, and 

 grubs. 



Another well-known summer visitor to the mea- 

 dows and corn-lands is the Landrail, known almost 

 as generally as the Corncrake. Few persons there 

 are that do not know the rasping, monotonous double 

 cry of this bird, and yet few people ever see a Corn- 

 crake all their lives, and still fewer, perhaps, could 

 describe or identify it. Its note is almost as familiar 

 as that of the Cuckoo, and equally characteristic of 

 spring and early summer. There is something ro- 

 mantic about this rasping cry, that sounds almost all 

 night long from the meadow grass. The bird itself 

 is rarely seen, it runs through the dense herbage 

 with astonishing rapidity, and should it by chance 

 disclose itself to our scrutiny, it is seldom imprudent 

 enough to repeat the action. And yet the Corn- 

 crake is not quite such a skulking bird as some would 

 make him. When all is quiet he not unfrequently 

 wanders out of the hay-meadow through the hedge 

 into the barer pasture beyond, sometimes running 

 a score of yards into the open field; but at the least 

 alarm he is off back again and soon concealed 

 amongst the weeds and long grass in the bottom of 



