MAY 115 



Renfrewshire to say that one morning she counted 

 seventeen cuckoos picking caterpillars off her goose- 

 berry bushes. Her veracity is far above suspicion, but 

 her arithmetic ? 



If the cry of the cuckoo is monotonous, it is at least 

 musical, whereas that of the other summer bird I have 

 mentioned, the corncrake or landrail, is not only 

 monotonous but harsh and grating. It is only its 

 association with ' the sweet o' the year ' that endears it 

 to us, for, like the cuckoo, the corncrake is vocal only 

 during the nesting season. In his beautiful work on 

 British birds the late Lord Lilford remarked that ' to 

 many [persons] the word corncrake simply conveys a 

 curious sound produced on summer evenings by an 

 unseen and mysterious creature that seems to be 

 possessed of the power of being in different places at 

 the same time.' It is, indeed, most seldom that one 

 gets a glimpse of this most furtive of fowls, except 

 when a mower, human or mechanical, lays bare its nest, 

 or when it is flushed by partridge shooters among the 

 turnips. All the more surprised was I, therefore, when 

 on 4th May 1918 I saw a corncrake making its crouch- 

 ing run across the closely-mown lawn before my library 

 window. The flower-garden is fenced in with rabbit 

 netting, and this seemed to puzzle the bird which, 

 except on its annual migration, will only take wing as 

 a last resource. Perhaps on arriving from oversea 

 during the night it had alighted within the enclosure, 

 weary after its long journey, and could not find its way 

 out afoot. 



The migration of the corncrake is one of the most 



