538 BRITISH BIRDS. 



and far less frequently in grain-fields. It is a much better structure 

 than is generally supposed, and to call it a mere hollow lined with a few 

 straws is certainly a libel on the poor Corn-Crake. The materials used 

 are coarse dry grasses and other herbage, and very often a few withered 

 leaves ; whilst the inside is lined with fine grass, very similar to that used 

 by the Missel-Thrush. It is very carefully made, the materials being 

 well interwoven, and is quite as elaborate a structure as the nest of a 

 Pipit or a Sky-Lark. It is generally built in a little hollow in the 

 ground, either a natural one or one made by the old birds. Dixon has 

 known two nests of this bird only a few yards apart ; and in many cases 

 several nests are built in one large field. The eggs of the Corn-Crake 

 are from eight to twelve in number, nine being an average clutch. They 

 vary from pale buff to creamy white or bluish white in ground-colour, 

 spotted and blotched with surface-spots of reddish brown, and under- 

 lying ones of pale lilac. The markings are seldom so numerous as to 

 cover much of the ground-colour, and are generally distributed over most 

 of the surface. Sometimes one egg in a clutch is much paler than the 

 rest and the markings much smaller. They vary in length from 1'5 to 

 1-36 inch, and in breadth from 1"1 to 1'02 inch. The eggs of the Corn- 

 Crake very closely resemble those of the Water-Rail, but they are on an 

 average much more thickly spotted. The Corn-Crake often sits upon her 

 eggs as soon as they are laid, Dixon has known this species remove its 

 eggs from a nest which had been exposed by the mowers. It sits very 

 close when the eggs are nearly hatched, and often pays for its devotion 

 with its life, from an unlucky stroke of the scythe or the knives of the 

 modern mowing-machine. 



The young are soon able to follow their parents through the herbage in 

 search of food, and should any danger threaten they will scatter in all 

 directions, and by crouching close to the" ground endeavour to escape detec- 

 tion. When about half -grown, they will scratch and bite with great vigour 

 the hands of their captor. Sometimes, when caught, the Corn-Crake will 

 feign death. Dixon has known a bird of this species, when caught, to feign 

 death so closely as to be laid on the grass by its captors and left for dead ; 

 but the moment it thought it was unobserved it set off running as if 

 nothing were the matter. Jesse records a similar instance. It is very 

 difficult to say when the Corn-Crake leaves this country in autumn, but 

 numbers probably migrate south in September. The date of its departure 

 is undoubtedly influenced by the decay or cutting of the herbage which 

 forms its only shelter. It passes Heligoland in August and September, 

 and is most numerous at Gibraltar in October. 



The general colour of the upper parts of the adult Corn-Crake is 

 brownish buff, each feather having a nearly black centre ; the primaries 

 and secondaries are chestnut-brown, and the wing-coverts chestnut. A 



