The lance -thrusting whiteness of the Evening 



Coming Star. 



But before rain the persistent cry of the 

 corncrake becomes loud, raucous, with a 

 rasping intensity. The bird is commonly said 

 to be a ventriloquist, but this I greatly doubt. 

 I have watched the rail in many places, often 

 within a few yards, more than once from the 

 flat summit of a huge boulder set in the heart 

 of a hillmeadow of grass and sorrel. Not once 

 have I heard ' the King of the quails ' un- 

 mistakably throw his voice a few score of 

 yards away. Often a crek-crake has resounded, 

 and at some distance away, just as I have 

 seen the stooping body of the dreaun (or traon 

 or treun-ri-treun) slide through the grassy 

 tangle almost at my feet : but the cry was not 

 identical with that which a moment before 

 I had heard, and surely it was not only dis- 

 tance but the difference of sex and the pulse 

 of love which softened it to a musical call. 

 Once, however, watching unseen from the 

 boulder I have spoken of, I saw and heard a 

 landrail utter its crake in three ways, first and 

 for over a minute with its head to one side 

 while it moved jerkingly this way and that, 

 then for a few seconds (perhaps four or five 

 times) with its head apparently thrown back, 

 and then after a minute or two's silence and 



196 



