CHAPTER XXXV NESTING HABITS 



JULY is/. — In walking over a field, the grass of 

 which had been cut the day before, but was not yet 

 carried, I disturbed a landrail, who was still sitting 

 on her eggs, notwithstanding the great change that 

 must have come over her abode, which, from being cover- 

 ed with a most luxuriant crop of rye-grass and clover, was 

 now perfectly bare. How the eggs had escaped beingbrok- 

 en, either by the scythe or by the tramping of the mower's 

 feet, it is difficult to understand ; but there was the poor 

 bird sitting closely on her eggs, as if nothing had happen- 

 ed,and on mynear approach she moved quietly away.look- 

 ing more like a weasel than a bird as she ran crouching 

 with her head nearly touching the ground. 



In another part of the same field I passed a nest of land- 

 rails in which the young ones were on the point of, or rather 

 in the very act of being hatched, some of the young having 

 just quitted the shell, while others were only half out of their 

 fragile prison. Both old birds were running around the nest 

 while I stopped to look at their little black progeny, and 

 were uttering a low kind of hissing noise, quite unlike their 

 usual harsh croak. The mowers told me that they had seen 

 several nests in the same field, but had avoided breakingr 

 the eggs whenever they perceived them in time. Though 

 innumerable landrails arrive here during the first week in 

 May, always coming regularly to their time, the period and 

 manner of their departure are quite a mystery to me. Al- 

 though in general their young are not hatched till the first 

 and second week in July, they seem to have entirely van- 

 ished by the time that the corn is cut: it is very rare indeed 

 to find one when you are beating the fields in September. 

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