292 OUR SUMMER MIGRANTS. 



dunghill, on which beech leaves had been 

 thrown ; but I let it go after some time — in 

 honesty, not through kindness, but because I 

 could not help it, for it could pass through any 

 hole, almost, as Paddy used to say, ' as limber 

 as a glove.' I could also state many instances 

 of dogs chasing Corncrakes in winter to holes, 

 and in one case remember how nearly I was 

 summoned for tearing down a man's ditch bank 

 ' in pursuit of rats,' as he said, though he had 

 two eyes and saw the bird run from hole to 

 hole. More learned men than he may have 

 often thought the same thing. Hybernating, 

 in my view, would not mean a dead, torpid 

 state. I should consider it a sleepy, inactive 

 state — a lying-up in cold weather, and a tem- 

 porary arousing during genial days ; and in this 

 state I have met the Corncrake in winter." 



Before one can accept the hybernation theory, 

 however, some stronger evidence in its favour 

 would be desirable — the discovery, for instance, 

 of a Landrail in a torpid state from which it 

 might be observed to recover. At present I 



