Wading Birds . 
255 
CHAPTER XI. 
“ The Raile, which seldom comes but upon rich men’s spits ”■— 
(Drayton, Polyolbion, song xxv.) 
this was probably the Water Rail, which is still a 
common bird. Sir Thomas Browne, writing _ 
. Rail. 
in the seventeenth century, mentions among 
the land birds of Norfolk, the ralla, or rail, which he 
counts a dainty dish; and Leigh, somewhat later, de¬ 
scribing the birds of Lancashire, says 
“ The rale is a bird about the bigness of a partridge and is common 
.in these parts, it hides it self in the grass, and is discovered by the 
snarling noise that it continually makes; it is very excellent food 
and doubtless of extraordinary nutriment.” {Nat. Hist, of Lancashire, 
p. 126.) 
This latter bird is the land-rail or corncrake, wdiose 
familiar cry is heard in corn lands and rich meadows, 
in most parts of the country. 
Of the various Water Fowl frequenting the Lincoln¬ 
shire fens, Drayton writes:— 
“ The gossander with them, my goodly fens do show 
His head as ebon black, the rest as white as snow, 
With whom the widgeon goes, the golden-eye, the smeath, 
And in odd scatterd pits, the flags and reeds beneath; 
The coot, bald, else clean black, that whiteness it doth bear 
Upon her forehead star’d, the water-hen doth wear 
Upon her little tail, in one small feather set. 
