158 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 

 cover. Few birds are so slow in flight, certainly 

 no other game-birds if it is entitled to be classed 

 with them, because, as for woodcock and snipe, 

 a game licence is required before it may be taken. 

 Beaters have surprised themselves by bagging 

 landrails with sticks and partridge carriers, and we 

 have known a clever retriever to catch a landrail 

 in the air. In spite of her wide experience, the 

 dog mistook the landrail for a wounded bird when 

 it rose, in its heavy way, some twenty yards before 

 her, while she quested for a partridge. As if in revenge 

 for having been fooled, she gave furious chase, and 

 retrieved it. Flushed in a gale of wind, a landrail will 

 make some progress, though its flight at first is rather 

 suggestive of a wind-driven leaf. But after a time the 

 flight grows stronger, as though the wings had worked 

 off some stiffness. No bird seems less willing to be 

 seen than the landrail. Yet it will make itself heard 

 almost continuously from the first streak of dawn 

 until darkness. Its harsh-toned " Crake, crake, 

 crake," seems close at hand at one moment, then 

 far away, suggesting that the bird is swift enough 

 on its legs, if slow in flight. It does not travel far, 

 having arrived from its over-sea journey, haunting, 

 as a rule, one chosen field, where it is seen only by 

 the mower, who may accidentally wound the close- 

 crouching bird with his scythe. Landrails seem to 

 become more scarce every year, and this is often put 

 down to the mowing machine, which it is claimed is 

 more fatal to sitting birds than the scythe. But birds 



