WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 301 



close neighbourhood, all evidently bent upon remain- 

 ing to breed. To make quite sure, I shot one. After- 

 wards I found a nest, and had the pleasure of seeing 

 the young birds come to maturity and fly. 



Nothing could be more thoroughly opposed to the 

 usual habits of the bird. There may be other instances 

 recorded, but what one sees oneself leaves so much 

 deeper an impression. The summer that followed was 

 a very fine one. It is instances like this that make 

 one hesitate to dogmatize too much as to the why 

 and wherefore of bird- ways. Yet it is just the specula- 

 tion as to that why and wherefore which increases the 

 pleasure of observing them. 



Then there is the corncrake, of whose curious tricks 

 in the mowing-grass I have already written. The 

 crake's rules of migration are not easily reconciled 

 with any theory I have ever heard of. In the par- 

 ticular locality which has been described the crakes 

 come early, they enter the mowing-grass and remain 

 there till after it is cut ; immediately afterwards they 

 are heard in the corn. Presently they are silent, and 

 supposed to be gone ; but I have heard of their being 

 shot in the opening of the shooting season on the 

 uplands. The cry of the crake in that locality is so 

 common and so continuous as to form one of the 

 most striking features of the spring : the farmers 

 listen for them, and note their first arrival, just as 

 for the cuckoo which, it may be observed in passing, 

 even in England keeps time with the young figs. 



But when I had occasion to pass a spring in Surrey 



