70 LAND-RAIL. 



The food of the Land-Rail is composed of worms, snails, 

 slug^s, insects, grass seeds, and portions of vegetables. Sir 

 William Jardine found a mouse in one. 



The well-known note of the Corn-Crake, whence this its 

 name, 'crake, crake; crake, crake,' is begun to be heard when 

 summer is at last fully established, simultaneously in general 

 with the arrival of the bird. The male it is that gives 

 utterance to the dissonant cry, and by imitating it he may 

 be enticed pretty near. It is uttered most frequently from 

 the top of a clod of earth or a stone, but also otherwise at 

 times. It is mostly heard in the evening or the morning, 

 but occasionally also throughout the day, until the hen 

 begins to sit. In like manner it is not unfrequently con- 

 tinued through part of the calm still summer night, 'till 

 morning comes again,' at least from about eight o'clock in 

 the evening till about twelve or one. A curious ventriloquism 

 is resorted to at pleasure, making the sound at one moment 

 appear close to the listener, and the next a long way off. 

 When the brood are hatched, the stridulous sound is once 

 more taken up, and sometimes the position of the nest is 

 thus led to. A low guttural noise appears also to be 

 expressed when the bird is alarmed or disturbed. 



The nest is placed among long grass or corn, in a furrow 

 or some slight hollow, and is lined with a few of the leaves 

 and stalks of the neighbouring herbage. 



The eggs, commonly seven or eight, or ten or even eleven 

 in number, are of a pale reddish brown, or reddish or 

 yellowish white colour, spotted and speckled with grey and 

 reddish brown. They do not vary much, except in the size 

 and greater or lesser number of the spots. Some are of a 

 red tinted ground colour, with blots of deep red brown and 

 purple; others white, with a faint tinge of blue, and fanci- 

 fully streaked and spotted all over. Two broods are wont 

 to be reared in the year, the first being hatched between 

 the beginning or middle of June, or later towards the end. 



The young quit the nest when hatched, and in rather less 

 than six weeks are able to fly. The female sits very close, 

 and often suffers in consequence, from the unwitting scythe 

 of the mower. She leads the young about almost as soon 

 as hatched. 



Male; weight, about six or seven ounces, but it has been 

 known as much as eight or eight and a half, and, on the 

 first arrival of the bird, as little as five; length, about ten 



