OF NATURE. 



217 



Land-rails are more plentiful with us 

 than in the neighbourhood of Selborne. I 

 have found four brace in an afternoon, 

 and a friend of mine lately shot nine in 

 two adjoining fields ; but I never saw them 

 in any other season than the Autumn. 



That it is a bird of passage there can be 

 little doubt, though Mr. White thinks it 

 poorly qualified for migration, on account 

 of the wings being short, and not placed 

 in the exact centre of gravity : how that 

 may be I cannot say, but I know that its 

 heavy sluggish flight is not owing to its 

 inability of flying faster, for I have seen it 

 fly very swiftly, although in general its 

 actions are sluggish. Its unwillingness to 

 rise proceeds, I imagine, from its sluggish 

 disposition, and its great timidity, for it 

 will sometimes squat so close to the ground 

 as to suffer itself to be taken up by the 

 hand, rather than rise ; and yet it will at 

 times run very fast. 



What Mr. White remarks respecting 

 the small shell snails found in its gizzard, 



