THE LANDRAIL 165 



We have great numbers of landrails here in their breeding- 

 season. I have for several years first heard them on the ist of 

 May. Hoarse and discordant as their voice is, I always hear 

 it with pleasure, for it brings the idea of summer and fine weather 

 with it. Oftentimes have I opened my window during the fine 

 dewy nights of June to listen to these birds as they utter their 

 harsh cry in every direction, some close to the very window, and 

 answered by others at different distances. I like too to see 

 this bird, as at the earliest dawn she crosses a road followed by 

 her train of quaint-looking, long-legged young ones, all walking 

 in the same stooping position ; or to see them earlier in the 

 year lift up their snake-like heads above the young corn, and 

 croak in defiance of some other bird of the same kfnd, whose 

 head appears now and then at a short distance. At other times, 

 one hears the landrail's cry apparently almost under one's feet 

 in the thick clover, and he seems to shake the very ground, 

 making as much noise as a bull. How strange it is that a bird 

 with apparently so soft and tender a throat can utter so hard 

 and loud a cry, which sounds as if it was produced by some 

 brazen instrument. I never could ascertain whether this cry 

 is made by the male or female bird, or by both in common : 

 I am inclined to suppose the latter is the case, as in endeavouring 

 to make this out I have watched carefully a small piece of grass 

 and shot four landrails in it in as many minutes, every bird in 

 the act of croaking. Two of them were larger and of a redder 

 plumage than the others, and were apparently cock birds : this 

 inclines me to think that the croaking cry is common to both 

 sexes. Their manner of leaving the country is a mystery. 

 Having hatched their young, they take to the high corn-fields, 

 and we never see them again, excepting by chance one comes 

 across a brood at dawn of day, hunting along a path or ditch side 

 for snails, worms, and flies, which are their only food, this bird 

 being entirely insectivorous, never eating corn or seeds. By the 

 time the corn is cut they are all gone ; how they go, or whither, 

 I know not, but with the exception of a stray one or two I never 

 see them in the shooting-season, although the fields are literally 

 alive with them in the breeding-time. You can seldom flush 

 a landrail twice ; having alighted he runs off at a quick pace, 

 and turning and doubling round a dog, will not rise. I have 

 caught them more than once when they have pitched by chance 



