AUGUST. 243 



While speaking of the habits of animals, I may 

 as well add one or two other facts. The corn- 

 crake which visits us in summer, and keeps up in 

 our meadows its cry of crake, crake, is, it is well 

 known, not easily to be seen. It runs with great 

 rapidity, and is loth to take wing. When found, it 

 has the instinct, in common with some other ani- 

 mals, and especially insects, to feign death. A 

 gentleman had one brought to him by his dog. It 

 was dead to all appearance. As it lay on the 

 ground, he turned it over with his foot he was 

 convinced it was dead. Standing by, however, 

 some time in silence, he suddenly saw it open an 

 eye. He then took it up its head fell its legs 

 hung loose it appeared again totally dead. He 

 then put it in his pocket, and before very long he 

 felt it all alive and struggling to escape. He took 

 it out, it was as lifeless as before. He then laid 

 it again upon the ground and retired to some dis- 

 tance; in about five minutes it warily raised its 

 head, looked round, and decamped at full speed. 



I was, on a fine summer day, sitting in the 

 meadows opposite Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, 

 contemplating the remains of that fabric which 

 once imprisoned the Queen of Scots. On the slope 

 of the castle-hill facing me I observed a rabbit 

 sitting by its burrow. Suddenly from a bush at 

 some distance issued a large weasel, and darting 

 on with the rapidity of an arrow, attempted to 

 make its way into the burrow, in which, no doubt, 

 were the rabbit's young ones. The rabbit, with an 



