222 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



the first two or three such attempts the crake seems 

 to move but a little way, dodging to and fro in a 

 zigzag, so that his call is never very far off ; but if 

 repeated again and again he gets alarmed, there is a 

 silence, and presently you hear him in a corner of the 

 mead a hundred yards distant. Perhaps once, if you 

 steal up very, very quietly, and suddenly dart for- 

 ward, or if you have been waiting till he has come un- 

 awares close to you, you may possibly see the grass 

 move as if something passed through it ; but in a 

 moment he is gone, without a glimpse of his body 

 having been seen. His speed must be very great to 

 slip like this from one side of the field to the other 

 in so few seconds. 



The fact that the call apparently issues from the 

 grass in one place, and yet upon reaching it the bird 

 is not to be found, has given rise to the belief that 

 the crake is a ventriloquist. It may be so ; but even 

 without special powers of that kind, ventriloquial 

 effects would, I think, be produced by the peculiar 

 habits of the bird. When that which causes a sound 

 is out of sight it must always be difficult to fix upon 

 the exact spot whence the sound comes. When the 

 sound is made now here, now yonder, as the bird 

 travels swiftly still out of sight it must be still 

 more difficult. The crake doubtless often cries from 

 a furrow which would act something like a trough, 

 tending to draw the sound along it. Finally, the incess- 

 ant repetition of the same note, harsh and loud, con- 

 fuses the ear. 



