WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 221 



For the copse is dark and gloomy, the bare oaks are 

 dark betynd ; the eye cannot see across the prairie, 

 whose breadth is doubled by the night. But yonder 

 lies a great gray sarsen boulder, like an uncouth beast 

 of ancient days crouching in the hollow. Hu?h ! 

 there was a slight rustling in the grass there, as of a 

 frightened thing ; it was a startled hare hastening 

 away. The brightest constellations of our latitude 

 pour down their rays and influence on the birth of bud 

 and leaf in spring ; and at no other season is the sky 

 so gorgeous with stars. 



The grass in the meadow or home-field as it begins 

 to grow tall in spring is soon visited by the corncrakes, 

 who take up their residence there. In this district 

 (though called the corncrake) these birds seem to 

 frequent the mowing-grass more than the arable fields, 

 and they generally arrive about the time when it has 

 grown sufficiently high and thick to hide their motions. 

 This desire of concealment to be out of sight is 

 apparently more strongly marked in them than in any 

 other bird ; yet they utter their loud call of " Crake, 

 crake, crake ! " not unlike the turning of a wooden 

 rattle, continuously, though only at a short distance. 



It is difficult to tell from what place the cry pro- 

 ceeds : at one moment it sounds almost close at hand, 

 the next fifty yards off ; then, after a brief silence, a 

 long way to one side or the other. The attempt to 

 mark the spot is in vain ; you think you have it, and 

 rush there, but nothing is to be seen, and a minute 

 afterwards " Crake, crake ! " comes behind you. For 



