VOL. vm.] LAND-RAIL INQUIRY REPORT. 89 



It will be seen that in England, throughout the 

 south and east — at any rate from Devon to Lincolnshire 

 and including the south-east Midlands — the Land-Rail 

 can no longer be regarded as a regular breeding species, 

 although a very few birds still nest from year to year 

 in almost every county. In south Wales, the west 

 of England and aU the Midlands, to the foot of the 

 Pennines and the Yorkshire moors, a fairly general 

 decrease, apparently of more recent origin, is stiU 

 taking place, except in a few . river- valleys and perhaps 

 some of the high ranges of hills. But throughout 

 the Pennine region and to the west of it the decrease 

 is scarcely appreciable ; in all these parts off the actual 

 moorland the species is stiU very abundant. 



Everywhere the birds are recorded as inhabiting 

 grass or clover, and only occasionally corn as well. 



Numerous attempted explanations are given to 

 account for the decrease : some recorders suggest that 

 shooting the birds in autumn, or the increase of 

 telegraph and telephone wires, against which they are 

 often kiUed, may be partly responsible. The corn- 

 drill, it is suggested, has made it impossible for birds 

 to nest in the cornfields, and in some parts the turning 

 of grassland into corn or the reverse, or the decrease 

 in the amount of clover-fields, are brought forward as 

 contributory causes. But by far the most popular 

 view is that the machines now in general use for cutting 

 the hay destroy many nests which were formerly 

 spared, and that this is responsible for the decrease. 



It does not seem likely that either of the first two 

 suggestions can have any real effect on the numbers 

 of any common bird. It is well known that so long as 

 a species is at all common, nothing short of a sustained 

 and wholesale slaughter at almost all times of year 

 has any noticeable effect on the number breeding each 

 year ; there always seem to be spare birds to fill up 

 the gaps (though what happens to them when there 

 are no gaps to fill is a mystery) amongst all the 



