after a brief rapid run forward with out-thrust The 

 neck and lowered head, as though calling along C f °{^ in ? 

 the ground. In no instance was the call 

 thrown as though from a distance, but un- 

 mistakably from where the bird moved or 

 crouched. There had been no response to 

 the first, a single echo-like crek-crake followed 

 the second, but to the third there came 

 almost simultaneously calls from at least three 

 separate regions. 



Nor is the rail so invariably shy, so heedful 

 of cover, as commonly averred. With silence 

 and patience it may often be discerned before 

 the seeding grass is too dense or the corn high. 

 In a lonely place on the east shore of West 

 Loch Tarbert in Cantire I have seen several 

 corncrakes leave cover as fearlessly as those 

 two other ' sacred ' or ' blessed ' birds, the 

 lark and the red grouse, will leave the shelter 

 of heather-clutch or grassy tussock : and one 

 morning I was awaked at dawn by so near 

 and insistent an iterance of the singular call 

 that I rose and looked out, to discover three 

 corncrakes awkwardly perched on a low rabbit- 

 fence, while I counted four others running to 

 and fro in the rough dew-glistered grass just 

 beyond. Here, by the way, a crofter spoke 

 of the landrail as the cearrsach, a name I have 

 not elsewhere heard and am not sure of the 



197 



