THE LAND-RAIL. 
313 
and clover are also resorted to, so soon after the biiThs arrival 
as they will afford shelter. Mr. Poole has heard it call early 
ill the season from fields of furze in the county of Wexford, 
which were better cover at the time than the meadows, and were 
probably selected on that account. 
Everywhere that we go in this island in the months of May, 
June, and early in July * (irrespective of the vicinity of rivers, 
which are considered to influence its distribution in Great Britain), 
except to the mountain top, or to stony and heath-covered tracts, 
the call of the corncrake is heard, not only at its favourite 
times, in the evening and during the night, but throughout the 
day.t Prom its frequenting the meadows or pastures nearest 
towns, and even those within them — as the grounds of the Boyal 
Academical Institution, Belfast — the corncrake makes itself heard 
through the night over a great portion of the towns in Ire- 
land. Owing to its late period of breeding, this bird suffers 
sadly during the mowing of our meadows, about which time it 
is generally engaged in incubation. Should it not fall a victim to 
the mower by the loss of its head, the nest being laid bare is 
deserted, or if the young have recently ‘^Gome out,” they are 
often either maimed or destroyed by the scythe. Bewick, in one of 
the inimitable tail-pieces to his ^ British Birds,^ represents the 
catastrophe first alluded to.J Portunately the species is very 
* In 1832, an ornithological friend remarked respecting the neighbourhood of 
Belfast, that after the 13th of July he rarely heard them call at night. On the 25th 
of that month, I listened to one in 1845, as I did to single birds on the nights of 
the 28th and 29th in 1848, in different districts. The 18th of July has been noted 
as the latest time at which they called about KiUaloe. Mr. Hyndman heard them during 
three days in the first week of August 1845, whieh he spent on Tory Island, off the 
county of Donegal. They are stated to visit that island annually. 
1 was told when in the island of Islay (Scotland) that they are numerous there 
every summer. 
t A night watchman in a bleach-green near Belfast, considers that for some time 
after arrival the birds call by night before they do so by day, and consequently that he 
is aware of their presence before most other persons — on “ nights wMch are close, 
and some warming rain,” they first make themselves known. Sir Win. Jardine 
states, that “ the crake is uttered by the bird when running, but more frequently when 
seated on some stone or elod.” — ‘Brit. Birds,’ vol. iii. p. 332. Such birds as have 
come under my own notice when calling, were stationary, their necks erect and at full 
stretch during the time, 
X Vignette to the Dotterel, p. 328, in edit, of 1821. 
