438 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



forms a sort of link between the Waders and the 

 Swimming Birds, some of them the Moorhen, for 

 instance taking to the water as readily, and swim- 

 ming and diving as expertly, as any of the true 

 Swimmers : the gap which is left is still further 

 filled up hy the Lobipedidse, of which the Bald Coot 

 is the sole representative. 



LAND KAIL, Crex pratensis. The first of the 

 family I have to mention, the Land Kail, or " Corn 

 Crake," as it is frequently called, is a well-known 

 summer visitor to this county, generally arriving 

 about the end of April, my earliest note of its 

 arrival is the 23rd, and departing about the middle 

 of October ; sometimes, however, it remains much 

 longer, and may occasionally stay the winter. There 

 is a note in the ' Zoologist' for 1867 (Second Series, 

 p. 739) of a Land Kail having been shot in the Isle 

 of Wight as late as the 31st of December; and 

 Mr. Blake -Knox, in the same volume (p. 678) of the 

 * Zoologist/ suggests that these birds occasionally, if 

 not always, hybernate in Ireland, as he has fre- 

 quently found them in holes in dry ditches during 

 the winter, from which they emerge in fine weather 

 to seek for food : he also adds that he has picked 

 them up dead at sea about the time of the spring 

 and autumn migration ; so it would appear tolerably 

 certain that although some may remain the winter, 

 others and probably the greater quantity migrate. 



