106 CONCERNING QUAILS AND LANDRAILS 



Australia. A wanderer on the face of the earth, yet how 

 poorly equipped for wandering, as must occur to every- 

 body who is accustomed to see it drop, apparently ex- 

 hausted, by the effort of crossing a September stubble on 

 wavering wings. One peculiarity about its movements 

 was noted by Herr Gatke during his fifty years' observa- 

 tion in Heligoland namely, that unlike its near relative, 

 the water-rail, the landrail never crosses the sea except in 

 fine, calm weather. Other migrants may ride the whirl- 

 wind, if they cannot direct the storm; but the landrail 

 will not avail itself of a favouring gale when changing its 

 quarters. Hence it sometimes happens that this bird, 

 usually seen solitary, may be met with in autumn in 

 considerable numbers, collected to wait for fair weather. 

 Dorsetshire seems to be a favourite waiting-place, for on 

 the southern slope of Nine Barrow Down in that county, 

 on llth September last, Mr. H. Lyon and Mr. Cavendish 

 Bentinck killed the record bag of fifty-seven landrails. 

 Here it was also that in 1850 Mr. Farrer, Mr. C. W. Digby, 

 and Mr. Luckham killed fifty landrails in a single day. 

 Again, at Acrys Park, near Folkestone, two hundred and 

 eleven landrails were killed during the season of 1880, 

 thirty-five falling to the guns in one day. I confess I like 

 ill to hear of such slaughter. To use a slang expression, 

 the bird offers a most ' footy ' shot : it is like shooting at 

 a great moth ; and it seems rather unfair to take advan- 

 tage of birds, bred in other districts, collected for what is 

 truly a most gallant enterprise. We all love the landrail. 

 There is no sound which more surely heralds the corning 

 of summer than its monotonous, persistent 'crake-crake' 

 in the meadows, and there is no spring migrant that 

 appears more regularly and punctually on our shores, 



