134 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS, 
skulk amid taller herbage, or under the shrubs of a raised bed, or 
beneath a rhododendron bush. A minute after it would be seen 
with its head and whole body erect, and the neck so out-stretched 
that if the bird had been hung up by its head it could: not have 
been much more elongated. This was the invariable position or 
attitude assumed when interchanging looks with the occupants of 
the window. My own impression was that these journeys or 
excursions (which I knew extended into the grass-field beyond the 
garden, and into a field over the road at the back of the plantation) 
were simply made for the purpose of inspection, and with a view 
to the selection of a place for nesting—and that, pending this in- 
teresting investigation, the fir trees and herbage beneath afforded 
an ample covert. As far as I could ascertain, the place actually 
selected by them for the purpose was in the field—a corn-field— 
just beyond that which lay adjacent to the garden. The Corn 
Crake makes a loose nest of dry herbage and stalks and grass; 
and I think almost always among growing herbage—gyrass, 
clover, or corn. The hen lays seven or eight eggs, some- 
times even ten, and sits very close upon them. They are whitish 
in ground, suffused with a reddish tinge, and spotted and speckled 
with brownish-red and purplish-grey.—Fig. 4, plate IX. 
219. SPOTTED CRAKE—(Crez porzana). 
A summer visitor, as the Land Rail is, to our shores. It is 
rare, however, compared with the Land Rail, and with more 
predilection for the vicinity of water. Like all the other Rails it _ 
conceals itself very closely, and from the form of its body and 
power of leg runs with great speed and equal facility, even 
among what seems to be and is very thick covert. It is known 
to breed in Norfolk and in Cambridgeshire, and is believed to do 
so in other localities as well. The nest, made on the ground in 
