NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



still nests in Scotland, but the great majority of them 

 breed in North Europe, Siberia, and other remote 

 places. Among other plovers, the golden plover and 

 peewit are familiar to down folk. 



Hares, rabbits, and partridges are all plentiful upon 

 the downs. There is a certain slope, lying between one 

 range of down and another, which I occasionally cross. 

 It lies secluded, and is always covered with long grass — 

 much like the veldt grass of South Africa — and here 

 one is almost certain of putting up partridges or land- 

 rail. Last September, crossing this thick, pale yellow 

 grass, in a very strong wind, I came so suddenly upon 

 a landrail that in sheer terror he was driven out of his 

 usual running, creeping habit and forced to take wing. 

 He swept off down wind like a partridge, and, borne 

 away upon the gale, was quickly out of sight. I never 

 quite realised till that moment how well this bird can 

 fly — if he likes. And, indeed, the landrail must be a 

 bird of fair flight to compass the enormous distances 

 that he accomplishes by sea and land. He is quite one 

 of the most determined travellers in the world, moving 

 as he does during his spring and autumn migrations 

 over more than half the world. It is astonishing how a 

 bird of such running habits and apparently such feeble 

 flight can undertake such wanderings. The unquench- 

 able spirit of migration is, surely, one of the most 

 wonderful and, thus far, the most mysterious and in- 

 explicable things in all nature. We have, from time to 

 time, various explanations offered us ; none of them 

 seem really satisfactory. The fact is the impulses and 

 beginnings of this instinct are clean lost in the aeons 

 upon aeons of time that have elapsed since first these 

 creatures began their journeyings. 



Landrails vary very much in numbers in different 

 years. During the season of 1898 they were, I think, 



300 



