THE CORNCRAKE. 271 



We are inclined to think, though we have not abso- 

 lutely ascertained the fact, that those misleading 

 sounds are not all uttered by the same bird, but that 

 the pair act in concert. The cry is not a love note ; 

 and thus the only meaning that can be assigned to it, 

 is that it is the note of a watchman. The evening is 

 the time when the smaller predatory quadrupeds prowl 

 about ; and the incessant noise that is then kept up by 

 the crake, may be for drawing them away from the 

 nest. When the bird has succeeded in that, it may be- 

 come silent, and run, which it can do rapidly without 

 making any rustling noise in thick herbage, till it effect 

 its escape, and its silence may be a signal for the other 

 to begin ; and thus the two may exhaust the patience 

 of the staunchest enemy. When closely pursued by a 

 dog, it squats down till the dog has vaulted over it, 

 then it runs off at an angle, and the cry is heard at a 

 distance. When there are no other means of escape, 

 it will rise on the wing, and that is the only time, un- 

 less by the merest accident, the sportsman can get a 

 shot at it. It rises most readily when near a hedge, 

 and it will often get upon that so adroitly as to make 

 the pursuer fancy that it is still upon the ground : at 

 other times it will appear to pass clean over the hedge 

 into the next field, when, in fact, it has descended and 

 doubled back into the same one ; it will perch on the 

 hedge unobserved ; or it will pass over when it appears 

 to have returned. But it leaves the field in which its 

 young are with very great reluctance, and never to any 

 considerable distance ; and though one may succeed in 

 driving it over the hedge into a high road, or where 

 there is short herbage, it doubles round, slips in 



