CREX P R A T E X S IS
REX PRATENSIS .
Land-Rail, or Corn-Crake.
Rallus Crete, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 261.
Porphyrio ntfeseem, Briss. Orn., tom. v. p. 533.
Gallimla Crtx, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 766.
Crex pratensis, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., tom. iv. p. 470.
Ortygometra Crex, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xii. p. 213, pi. 26,
T here are doubtless many persons, with a taste for the natural objects around them, who are not
aware that our avifauna is composed of birds which are stationary, as the Robin and the Wren, chance
visitors, like the Hoopoe and the Oriole, spring migrants, like the Swallow and the Cuckoo, and
autumn migrants, like the bieldfare and the Redwing. The autumnal visitors which come from
colder climates, such as Norway and Sweden, retire northward again about the time when our spring
visitors arrive from Africa: these latter comprise, beside the Swallow and smaller sylvan species, the
Saxicolhue, the Cuckoo, the Quail, me Night-Jar, Wryneck, Land-Rail, &c.,—the aggregate being about
fifty species. Thus, when we lose our winter visitants;, tfg ir place is supplied by the arrival, during the
month of April, o f fifty kinds o f birds which had wintWed ¡¡/elsewhere. No one of these spring visitors is
more conspicuous than the Land-Rail, which, arriving about the second week in April, gradually spreads
over the whole of the British Islands, and by the 1st o f May is as common in Sutherlandshire as it is in our
most southern counties; in Ireland the movement is precisely similar, and it is even more numerous there
than in England. Britain is by no means the most northern country which the Land-Rail annually v isits;
for in summer it is found, but in smaller numbers, in Iceland ^ n d Greenland. Independently o f the
localities above mentioned, the Land-Rail is found all over Europe, from north to so u th ; and in one or
other part of the ymr. from Madeira in the Atlantic, throughout Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and as far
eastward as
Soon after its a rm a i w tfe«* restless migrant settles itself ip some low grassy mead, field o f clover
or corn, o r bed of osiers, and «fee male commences the harsh, kraking, monotonous • call so well known to
every one resident in the country. As soon as the female has responded to the invitation, the mated pair
commence their n e s t; the due number o f eggs having been laid in daily succession, the task o f incubation
is commenced; and by the time the grass is ready for the scythe, the mead bespangled with the buttercup,
and the charlock well in flower, the hatching-time has arrived, and the coal-black young are following their
parents stealthily through the grass. These active little creatures must grow with unusual rapidity; for
the barley is scarcely ripe before they can fly, and the 1st of September is usually too late for the sportsman
to benefit by more than a remnant of the thousands that must have been bred in our islands. The great
mass o f both old and young are now near the south coast, waiting for the first favourable opportunity to
cross the water, and gradually pass southward to their winter quarters. It is true that Land-Rails are
often killed in September, and even in October. A field o f standing clover will even hold them lo n g er:
and some few must stay with us the whole winter, for specimens are frequently seen in the London markets
a t Christmas, and I once picked up a dead Land-Rail, a t Hawkstone, in January, which had apparently been
killed by some bird o f prey. But, as I have stated, the greater number depart in September—a circumstance
very much to be regretted by those who are fond o f sport, o r who possess an epicurean ta s te ; for there are
few birds better adapted to gratify it, and still fewer that are its equal. How stealthily does the Land-Rail
thread the grass, the corn, o r the standing clover! With;tyhat command does it utter its harsh call so as
to deceive those who may be anxiously wishing to sight i t ! at one moment the noise seems to be a t your f e e t;
at the next it appears to be many yards distant, and so perhaps it i s ; yet the boy, sitting in yonder ditch, with
the aid o f a comb and a piece o f wood, calls the bird within a yard of him, and with uplifted stick strikes the
moving grass and secures it. In the neighbourhood of London, where all is grass and dairy farms,
Mr. Bond tells me, roanv are destroyed in this way.
With regard to the flight of the Land-Rail, every sportsman will testify that it is the most laboured,
the slowest, and the straightcst of all b ird s ': yet, to our astonishment, we know that this species crosses
wide seas, and performs a migration o f greater extent than any other o f our spring birds, with the
exception, perhaps, o f the Wheatear. We cannot but wonder how it can fly so great a distance without
exhaustion, when to cross only a moderately-sized field seems to tire it when flushed by the dogs in the
sjxirting-season; for it invariably drops within a hundred yards, and very rarely is it forced to rise
.igain. On my outward voyage to America a Land-Rail visited the ship when we were more than two