Nest, &c. 
Food. 
178 GRALLATORES. CREX. CRAKE. 
tion (which the observations I have made corroborate), that 
the Welsh and Irish shores are the first upon which these 
birds land, as being in the direct line of their polar migra- 
tion from Northern Africa and the southern parts of Europe, 
and that, from the extent of their journey, they arrive ex- 
hausted and reduced, but are recruited by a short residence, 
or during the time spent in a gradual passage to their dif- 
ferent places of resort. The Crake runs very swiftly, thread- 
ing through the closest grass with extraordinary ease, and, 
unless sorely pressed, or from a failure of cover, is very un- 
willing to seek safety in flight. To succeed in flushing: it 
requires the aid of a dog trained to the sport, and taught 
either to follow the T'rail with great quickness, or to make 
a rapid circuit and get in advance of the bird. It flies low, 
and in a heavy wavering manner, with the feet hanging down, 
and seldom to any distance at a time. It breeds in meadows, 
or in the rough herbage of moist thickets, and sometimes in 
standing corn, if near to water. The nest is composed of 
grass and other dried plants, a slight hole being first made 
in the ground, and the eggs, in number from ten to fourteen, 
are of a yellowish-white, slightly tinged with pink, and 
spotted irregularly with reddish-brown, in size nearly equal 
to those of the partridge, but of a more oblong shape. ‘The 
-young, when excluded, quit the nest, and are then covered 
with a black hairy down, which gives place by degrees to the 
usual plumage, and in less than six weeks they are able to 
fly. When uttering its cry, the neck of the Crake is stretched 
perpendicularly upwards, and the note is varied, seeming to 
a listener to come from different distances, and producing thus 
an effect similar to ventriloquism.—It feeds on worms, slugs, 
and insects, with vegetables and seeds. I have kept this 
bird in confinement in apparent good health, on a diet of 
earth-worms, and bread steeped in milk. In this species a 
few of the frontal feathers possess the hard and horny tip 
that distinguishes the Rails; but this is not found in the 
others of the genus. 
