LAND-RAIL 
251 
the Nightingale makes such an absolute contrast 
with the harsh, monotonous " crake, crake — crake, 
crake," of the Land-rail, a noise which seems to be 
measuring out the night like the rusty working of 
some curious instrument of time. This cry can be 
imitated very closely by drawing the fingers along 
the teeth of a comb ; and a writer in a sporting 
paper described not long ago how, by imitating 
it in this way, he drew a Land-rail, in broad day- 
light, across his garden, and close up to the windows 
of his house, where it searched for the supposed 
rival eagerly but in vain. As a rule, however, it is 
a very shy and skulking bird, and a head raised for 
a moment above the growing grass in an early 
May meadow is as much as is generally seen of it, 
except when it is flushed in the fields during Septem- 
ber partridge-shooting. It flies then so slowly 
and heavily, with awkwardly hanging legs, that it is 
a matter of marvel how it ever accomplishes its 
great sea-journeys at migration time. When seen 
running it is very noticeable from the position of 
the legs, which are placed very far back beneath 
the body, and from the skulking way in which the 
bird keeps its head and foreparts stretched out 
almost straight before it as it slips away into cover. 
In size it is rather smaller than the Moorhen, and 
a good deal slenderer in build. In colour it is a 
mottled reddish-brown above, and pale greyish- 
