OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 13 



CORN-CRAKE. 



CORN-CRAKES' nests are not easy to find, on account of 

 the facts that they are well hidden, and generally 

 situated amongst grass, corn, and such other grow- 

 ing crops as farmers naturally do not care to have 

 trampled over. On several occasions we have sought 

 diligently for a nest in a favourite old haunt, but in 

 vain, until the mower's scythe came along and re- 

 vealed its whereabouts. At the beginning of June 

 I visited a lonely spot near the head of a West- 

 moreland ghyll, that used to be much beloved of 

 Corn-crakes, in the hope of finding a nest, but was 

 disappointed to discover that even such a conserva- 

 tive species will at times forsake an ancestral home. 



Upon reaching North Uist every bit of cultivated 

 land, especially on the west side of the island, ap- 

 peared to be tenanted by Landrails. They had arrived 

 on the 7th of May, according to my friend Hector 

 Mackenzie's diary, and on the 12th of June I com- 

 menced to search for a nest in one of his meadows 

 that appeared to be alive with them, to judge from 

 the chorus of grating, unmusical notes that filled the 

 air day and night, especially when the weather was 

 fine. My host's shepherd, a keen, well-informed 

 naturalist, brought a dog along that he thought 

 would be calculated to assist me in my task, and by 

 its aid we turned three pairs of birds out of some 

 colt's-foot growing round the field, and several 

 pairs out of the interior ; but we failed to find what 

 we wanted. We then hunted an adjoining pasture 

 through which a small iris-fringed stream ran ; but 

 although we flushed three or four more pairs of birds, 

 we saw nothing in the shape of a nest. What rather 

 surprised me was that the birds never appeared to 



