BIRDS OF LLEYN, WEST CARNARVONSHIRE. 495 



and being able, as of yore, to hear its cry while I was in bed. 

 The distribution of the Corn-Crake in the British Islands has 

 been, and is, rather peculiar. It has always favoured the western 

 parts and the north. The older writers on our ornithology 

 (except Turner) seem to have been but little acquainted with it, 

 and their knowledge of its identity even was not too clear. 

 Turner described its habits, &c, well from observations in 

 Northumberland (I quote from Ray's ' Willughby'), but the 

 latter authors rely on his description, merely adding that, "al- 

 though this bird be more rare in England, yet it is found every- 

 where in Ireland in great plenty." It is fairly well figured in the 

 'Ornithology' as " Ortygometra ; the Rail or Daker Hen." 

 Charleton (whose first edition was published in 1668) knew next 

 to nothing about it. He applied the name Daker Hen of Turner 

 wrongly, but has the bird under the name Ortygometra, the 

 Raile. " Raro . . . est cursus velocissimi. Inter herbas & 

 gramen sese abdit ut raro appareat " (' Exercitationes,' 1677). 

 Ray's * Synopsis' takes us but little farther. "Daker Hen or 

 Rail. In Anglia rarior est. In Hibernia frequens habetur." 

 Pennant writes : — " They are in greatest plenty in Anglesea, 

 where they appear about the twentieth of April, supposed to pass 

 over from Ireland, where they abound ; at their first arrival it is 

 common to shoot seven or eight in a morning. They are found 

 in most of the Hebrides, and the Orknies." The Corn-Crake 

 seems to have been always somewhat local in England. In 

 White's day it was quite rare at Selborne, though abundant in 

 Wilts, and about Oxford, where it has become more scarce of late 

 years. The name Corn-Crake (by which the bird is almost 

 invariably known in spring) was not general a century ago. The 

 bird is the Crake Gallinule of Pennant and Montagu, the latter 

 giving Corn-Crake, Crek, or Cracker as provincial names. But 

 Corn-Crake is an old name, and apparently originated in the 

 north. We find " Corn-crek " as early as 1684 in the 'Pro- 

 dromus H. N. Scotise ' of Robert Sibbald, and " Corn-craker," 

 in 1716, in Martin's 'Description of the Western Islands of 

 Scotland' (Pennant). Forster, in his 'Catalogue' (1817), how- 

 ever, has Corncrake as his first English name. 



Along some parts of the southern coast we find some grass 

 marshes, noisy in June with the constant screams of numbers of 



