440 RalUdce. 



the most part, a shy race, and as they generally prefer inland 

 ponds and lakes to the sea-coast, they secrete themselves in the 

 flags and reeds and rushes which border their haunts, and are 

 often found in wet ditches. They creep through the thick cover 

 with amazing quickness, winding their way amidst the dense 

 grass, and are very unwilling to rise on the wing; but when 

 compelled to do so, their flight is heavy and awkward, as might 

 be expected from the shortness of their wings. 



1G7. LAND-RAIL (Crex pratensis). 



This species, known also as the Corn- Crake, is familiar to the 

 partridge shooter, and well known also to him is its disinclination 

 to rise, and the rapidity with which it skulks with depressed 

 head through the stubble ; and if forced to take wing where it 

 can drop into cover again, it will fly with legs hanging down and 

 prepared to run the instant it alights. Harting says that, besides 

 running with great swiftness, it has a curious method of avoiding 

 the dogs by leaping with closed wings and compressed feathers 

 over the long grass some three or four yards ; and, then running 

 a short distance and leaping again ; and that the scent being 

 thus broken, it eludes the most quick-scented dogs.* 



It is common enough in our cornfields in summer, and yet it 

 is a genuine Rail, and resorts to damp meadows and marshy soil 

 to seek its food, for St. John declares it to be wholly insectivorous, 

 and never to eat corn or seeds ;( but other authors assign to it a 

 vegetable as well as an insect diet. The name crex is a Latinized 

 form of A-ptf, ' a Rail/ and this has the same derivation as Kptica>, 

 'I strike so as to sound ' (B.O.U.). Hence our English ' Crake.' 

 ' Rail/ too, comes from its cry, from roller, ' to rattle in the 

 throat ' (Skeat). In France it is Poule d'eau or Rale de Genet; 

 in Germany, Wiesenknarrer, ' Meadow-Crake ;' in Sweden, Kom- 

 Knarr and Ang-Knarr ; in Portugal, Codornizdo. It is a true 

 migrant, and never winters with us ; but in May its harsh 

 croaking cry of crek, crek, may be frequently heard ; and the 



* ' Our Summer Migrants/ p. 297. t ' Highland Sports/ p. 145. 



