148 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



September the majority of these birds will have departed 

 to winter in Africa. Now and again landrail are seen 

 here in October, and occasionally they are found passing 

 the winter in England, but more frequently has this 

 occurred in Ireland and in that group of islands known 

 as the Outer Hebrides, the remarkably mild character of 

 the winters there experienced appearing to suit these 

 birds. Wherever landrail are met with here in winter 

 under less favourable climatic conditions, they are 

 supposed to be merely late-hatched or possibly wounded 

 birds that had been physically incapable of proceeding 

 southward at the time of the autumnal reflux. 



The grating call-notes of the landrail are familiar to 

 most people who have resided in various parts of the 

 country during May. Although at first welcomed as the 

 harbinger of spring, the rather harsh and penetrating 

 "crek-crek, crek-crek" of the corncrake may after a 

 time prove somewhat tiresome, as it proceeds with but 

 little intermission so long as daylight lasts in those 

 glorious days of early summer. The landrail is so 

 remarkably shy and retiring of habit that its presence 

 would often pass unnoticed were it not for its well- 

 known cry. Its food comprises slugs, snails, worms, and 

 some seeds, and although much frequenting the rich 

 meadows and low-lying fields in the vicinity of water, 

 this is not exclusively its habitat in this country, for it 

 may be found upon the drier, corn-growing lands. I 

 have shot landrail upon the more elevated districts of 

 the Wiltshire Downs and the Yorkshire Wolds, some 

 hundreds of feet above sea-level, and in Scotland a 

 landrail has been met with at an altitude of 2500 feet. 



Those whose acquaintance with the landrail is limited 

 to casual and infrequent meetings in September might 



