How to bag the Crake 179 



meadow, at some distance on the same farm, is equally 

 favoured by them. This meadow adjoins that second line 

 of bird-travel, following a brook previously alluded to. But 

 as the crakes, though they will take refuge in a hedge, do 

 not travel along it habitually, this circumstance may be 

 accidental. Crakes, notwithstanding they run so swiftly, 

 do not seem to move far when once they have arrived ; 

 they appear to restrict themselves to the field they have 

 chosen, or, at the furthest, make an excursion into the 

 next and return again, so that you may always know where 

 to go to hear one. 



The mowers cutting these meadows find the eggs — the 

 nest being on the ground — and bring them to the farm- 

 stead, both as a curiosity and to be eaten, some thinking 

 them equal to plovers' eggs. Though you may follow the 

 sound ' Crake, crake ! ' in the grass for hours at a time, 

 and sometimes get so near as to throw your walking-stick 

 at a bunch of grass, you will never see the bird ; and 

 nothing, neither stick nor stone, will make it rise. Yet it 

 is easy to shoot, as I found, in one particular way. The 

 trick is to drive it into a hedge. Two persons and a 

 spaniel well in hand walk towards the ' Crake, crake ! ' 

 keeping some distance apart. The bird at first runs 

 straight away ; then, finding himself still pursued, tries 

 to dodge back, but finds the line extended. He then takes 

 refuge in silence, and endeavours to slip past unseen and 

 unheard ; but the spaniel's power of scent baffles that. At 

 last he makes for the hedge, when one person immediately 

 goes on the other side, and the spaniel beats up it. The 

 bird is now surrounded and cannot escape, and, as the dog 

 comes close upon him, is compelled to rise and fly. As he 

 rises his flight at first somewhat resembles the partridge's, 

 but it is slower and heavier, and he can be shot with the 



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