142 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



passed,, at which I fired ; and I think the report must 

 have caused it to rise, as, although I spent an hour 

 in looking up and down the drain, and returned again 

 at a later period in the day, I saw it no more." 



GBALLATORES. 



191. CREX PRATENSIS, Bechstein. Land-Rail. 



Provincial. Crake. 



The Corncrake, although a regular visitant, is very 

 locally distributed, and its presence or absence in 

 certain localities appears to be in a great measure 

 dependent on the nature of the season. In wet 

 summers, and consequently great grass years, it has 

 been tolerably numerous ; in years of drought very 

 scarce or absent altogether. To judge from its fa- 

 miliar cry or ' ' crake," it arrives with us in the early 

 part of May, frequenting the grass and low meadow- 

 land bordering the streams. It leaves again in Sep- 

 tember, and I have rarely met with it in the marshes 

 after this month. In this and the adjoining parishes 

 a district which, from the large proportion of 

 pasture- and meadow-land, seems particularly adapted 

 to their habits they were up to the last ten years 

 a comparatively rare bird. In the spring and summer 

 of 1864 they became suddenly tolerably plentiful; 

 and for the next three years there was a gradual an- 

 nual increase in the number visiting us, till in the 

 summer of 1867, to judge from the incessant " crek," 



