THE WORKS OF CREATION. 217 



Dr. Hastings, ' and it is one of those rural sounds 



* in which I delight. It is a shy and singular bird, 

 ' regular in its times of coming to, and quitting us, 

 ' although from the length of its body, and the 

 ' shortness of its wings, it appears but little adapted 



* for a long flight, and for encountering those gales 

 ' it must meet with in its passage to distant coun- 

 ' tries. Little is known of its habits, and it is but 

 ' lately that I have discovered one of its peculiar!- 

 ties, which seems to belong to this bird alone. I 

 4 encourage the labourers of my neighbourhood to 

 ' bring me the eggs of partridges and pheasants, if 



* they happen to mow or reap over the nests of 

 ' those birds, and I have generally some hens under 

 ' which I can place them. Last summer, a labou- 

 ' rer brought me some pheasants' eggs, and also 

 ' four eggs of the corncrake, which I had never seen 

 ' before. They were all put under the same hen, 

 ' and were all hatched at the same time, and placed 

 ' with the hen under a coop on my lawn. The 

 ' young pheasants soon learnt to peck their food, 

 ' but the corncrakes, notwithstanding the example 



* set them, ran round the coop with their heads in 

 ' the air, and shewed no disposition to seek for food 

 4 on the ground. After watching them for some 

 ' time, I offered them a small worm which I held 

 { between my finger and thumb, and which was 

 ' eagerly taken. In this way food was regularly 



* given to them, until they learnt to take it them- 



L 



