LANBllAIL, OR CORNCRAKE-SHOOTING. 811 



blotclied and speckled with umber-brown. The time of in- 

 cubation is three weeks, and the young are able to run soon 

 after they leave the shell, and speedily learn to feed on 

 insects, seeds, and green leaves. Many are found and killed 

 in wheat-stubbles by partridge-shooters in the month of Sep- 

 tember : they fly quickly, but generally straight and low, 

 and are difficult to be raised again after they have been 

 once flushed and alarmed. 



There is little doubt but the common quail was the bird 

 which is spoken of in the sacred writings as affording food 

 to the Israelites in the wilderness, for it is said in the thir- 

 teenth chapter of Exodus : — " And it came to pass, that even 

 the quails came down, and covered the camp.'' And in the 

 eleventh chapter of Numbers : — " And there went forth a 

 wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and 

 let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this 

 side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round 

 about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face 

 of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and aU 

 that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the 

 quails ; he that gathered least, gathered ten homers, and 

 they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the 

 camp." 



LAND-RAIL, OR CORNCRAKE-SHOOTING. 



The landrail is also a bird of passage, and makes his ap- 

 pearance in this country about the second week in May. 

 They may then be heard in grass meadows and green corn- 

 fields uttering their well-known harsh, monotonous cry of 

 creh-creh, creh-creh, which much resembles the noise made 

 by stripping forcibly the teeth of a large comb, under the 

 fingers : as we approach the sound retires, and is again heard 

 at a distance of fifty paces. 



