Ireland I have more than once seen one or two of these 

 birds running about unconcernedly on the highroads, 

 and frequently noticed them perched or running on the 

 tops of stone walls. The favourite summer haunts of 

 the Corn-Crake are water-meadows, where they find an 

 abundance of their favourite diet — slugs, small snails, 

 and worms and insects, and good concealment for their 

 nests, which are very simple constructions of dry grasses. 

 The eggs, of which I consider nine as the average com- 

 plement, are of a creamy white, thickly spotted and 

 blotched with rust-colour and grey. As soon as the 

 meadow-grass is mown the Corn-Crakes resort to over- 

 grown ditch-sides and fields of standing corn or clover ; 

 this last-named crop is at all times a usual resort, and 

 the ease and rapidity with which these birds glide and 

 double amongst the stems of a dense second crop of 

 clover must be seen to be believed. Although when 

 forced to take wing the Corn-Crake flies slowly with 

 hanging legs and soon drops again, the bird is capable 

 of swift and long-sustained flight ; it is also possessed of 

 considerable climbing power. 



In Northamptonshire, although our meadows are 

 generally alive with these birds in the summer, it is 

 very seldom that our total bag of them in the Partridge 

 shooting-season reaches to more than ten or twelve, 

 though they usually remain with us throughout Sep- 

 tember, and not uncommonly till the middle of October. 

 In our neighbourhood occurrences after the end of the 

 latter month are very exceptional, but very many 

 instances of their stay well into the winter are on record 

 from various parts of the three kingdoms, especially in 



