151 



THE LAND-RAIL. 



Cre.v pratensis, Bechst. 



The earliest arrival o£ this species was recorded from 

 Leicestershire on the 14th o£ April, but the first immigration, 

 a small one only, did not reach our shores until the ISth, when 

 it was noted in north Devonshire and Hampshire. A single 

 bird was heard in Cornwall on the 26th, and during the 

 following week Land-Rails were apparently arriving in 

 small numbers and spreading rapidly northwards ; they were 

 generally distributed in the west during the first ten days of 

 May, reaching Westmoreland and Northumberland on the 

 4th and 5th and the Isle of Man on the 9th. 



The increased numbers noted from time to time in various 

 counties of the west of England and in Wales up to the 26th 

 of May seemed to indicate a continuance of this intermittent 

 migration in the west, bat the actual point of arrival and the 

 routes followed can hardly be determined from the scanty 

 data furnished by the records. A nest with eggs was found 

 in Radnor on May the 29th. 



It should be noted that the Land- Rail was practically 

 unrecorded from the south-eastern counties. 



On April the 27th at 7 p.m. a very tired I^and-Rail flew 

 on board H.M.S. ' Dido,' then off the N.E. coast of Scotland, 

 in lat. 58° 40' N., long. 1° 10' W., but, being frightened, 

 departed almost immediately. Early the following morning 

 another (for it seems improbable from the relative positions 

 of the two ships that it could have been the same bird) was 

 found in the stokehold of H.M.S. 'Venerable,^ then 40 miles 

 S.E. of Wick (Caithness). This bird was liberated at 

 4 P.M. in Scapa Flow (Orkne}') and flew ashore. 



