Young Land Rails 385 



to a pretty loud tuck, tuck y or clucking call, and the actions 

 of the bird on the wall were such as to suggest that it was 

 making some vocal expression of complaint. 



The capacity of a Land Rail for threading its way through 

 the grass is well known to everyone who has tried to flush 

 a bird that was calling, but it is never better exemplified 

 than by the marvellous manner in which the young manage 

 to keep out of sight, even when the sheltering hay has been 

 cut all about them. They are at first clothed with black 

 down, and very much resemble Water Hen chicks of a 

 similar age. Gradually they put on a brown plumage, and 

 by the time they are full grown they are practically 

 identical with their parents. In their first black down they 

 are fairly familiar objects ; but by the time they have begun 

 to assume the brown dress, and have developed the full use 

 of their legs, they might almost be credited with the magic 

 power of making themselves invisible, so hard are they to 

 find, and so seldom are they seen. I was one day talking 

 with a man who was busy finishing the cutting of a small 

 field of hay, when his collies flushed a Corn Crake from the 

 tiny patch of grass that still remained to be cut ; but in 

 place of flying right away, the bird alighted not very far 

 from us, and began running in full view, without making 

 any attempt to hide, till forced to take wing again by the 

 dogs which pursued her. She then flew on to the adjoining 

 moor, and in a patch of rushes kept the dogs busy hunting 

 her (without any ill result) for quite twenty minutes. By 

 this time the cutting of the hay had been completed, and, 

 calling up his dogs, the farmer went home to dinner. The 

 crop was a very light one, and, being mown with a scythe, 

 lay in the usual irregular swathes, neither very wide apart 

 nor at all difficult to move. From the behaviour of the 

 old bird, I was convinced that she had left a brood in the 

 last patch of grass to be cut down ; and as this was of such 

 small extent, and the " stubble " left was so short, I felt 

 pretty confident of being able to find at least a few of them. 

 I expected to find little black balls of down, and looked 

 over the ground very carefully, even to the turning over of 

 some of the swathes, but could see nothing of them. The 



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