The meaning, unless it is 'the lumpy' or 'awk- 

 Coming ward one'; while an English factor knew it 

 " as the grass-drake or meadow-drake, and again 

 as the night-crow the latter obviously a sur- 

 vival from the Anglo-Saxon ' myghte- crake ' 

 or a name re-given from like association of 

 ideas. The same shrewd farmer quite believed 

 that a corncrake is governor and leader of each 

 flock of quails, at any rate in the season of 

 migration an idea held by the Greeks of old 

 and retained by the Greek and Sicilian quail- 

 shooters of to-day, and obviously wide-spread, 

 as the Germans call the landrail the quail-king 

 ( Wachtelkomg\ the French ' le roi des caillesS 

 the Italians ' il re di quagUe? and the Spaniards 

 ' el rey de las cordonices.' However, if he had 

 been a Gael he could have spoken of the quail 

 only by hearsay most likely, for it is very rare 

 in the Highlands, and for myself I have never 

 seen one there. Its name (garra-gart or 

 gartari) is not unique ; and the common term 

 muir-eun is solely biblical, 'sea-bird' or 'bird- 

 from- oversea,' because of the allusion in 

 Numbers xii. 31. 



But the dew is heavy on the grass : the 

 corncrake calls : on a cloudy juniper the night- 

 jar churrs : the fhionna or white moth wavers 

 above the tall spires of the foxglove. The 

 midsummer eve is now a grey -violet dusk. 



198 



