The Corn-Crake. 37 



about the liigh road, and noticed them perched on the tops of the stone walls. 

 The favoiirite food of the Corn-Crake consists of small snails, to which they add 

 slugs, worms, and insects. In dry seasons they take to the wet ditches and 

 frequent aqiiatic plants on the banks of the brooks. After the hay harvest they 

 resort to fields of standing com or preferably to clover. It has been frequently 

 noted that they avoid the neighbourhood of fences, preferring the open pastures. 



In many districts the Land- Rails are exceedingly common in the early summer, 

 when they first arrive after migration, but it is remarkable that very few are 

 acquired in the shooting season, which is accounted for by the fact that a very 

 large number of eggs are destroyed by the mowing machines, and also by the 

 difficulty of making the birds take wing out of the clover or standing barley which 

 is generally found in September. Lord Lilford says, admitting these facts, "it is 

 remarkable that though with good dogs there would be little difficulty in shooting 

 from twelve to twenty Land-Rails in our meadows in a few hours in early May, 

 it is very seldom that our total bag of these birds during the shooting season 

 has reached a dozen." The custom of shooting these birds on their first arrival, 

 though not uncommon, is an unsportsmanlike practise, which is very greatly to 

 be regretted. It would be much more advantageous to allow the birds to nest 

 and bring off their young during the summer, but the Corn-Crake is ardently 

 pursued owing to the extreme excellence of its flesh, which, however, is in the 

 best condition in September. 



The nest of this species has been more carefully described and beautifully 

 illustrated by Mr. Oswin A. J. Lee, in his admirable work on the " Nesting 

 Haun.ts of British Birds," than by any other writer. He says : — 



" The nest is always on the ground, generally among the meadow-hay, or 

 in some patch of nettles or dock- weed in some dry ditch or hollow in the field. 

 It is usually placed in some slight hollow in the ground, often scraped out by 

 the birds themselves, and is a very carefully built structure, the materials being 

 firmly interwoven with each other, and beautifully rounded. It is chiefly composed 

 of sedges, coarse dry grass, withered leaves and grass roots, and is carefully lined 

 with fine dry grass, almost like a larger edition of the Meadow Pipit's nest. 



The number of eggs laid varies usually from nine to twelve, nine being the 

 average clutch. I have twice seen nests which contained fourteen eggs, and once 

 came across one with thirteen. They vary in ground colour from dirty bluish- 

 white to very pale buff, and are blotched or spotted with red-brown surface marks 

 and pale violet-grey underlying marks. The spots are not, as a rule, very 

 numerous, and do not cover much of the ground colour. They are generally 

 pretty evenly distributed over the entire surface of the egg, and not at one end. 



