CREX PRATENSIS .
Land-Rail, or Corn-Crake.
Rallus Crete, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 261.
Porphyrio rufescens, Briss. Ora., tom. v. p. 533.
Gallimla Crex, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 766.
Crexpratensis, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., tom. iv. p. 470.
Ortygometra Crex, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. p i. p. 213, pi. 26.
T here are doubtless many persons, with a taste' for the natural objects around them, who are not
aware th at 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 Fieldfare 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
Saxicolince, the Cuckoo, the Quail, the Night-Jar, Wryneck. Land-Rail, &c.,—the aggregate being about
fifty species. Thus, when we lose our winter visitants, their place is supplied by the arrival, during the
month o f April, of fifty kinds o f birds which had winteredfelsewhere. 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 o f the British Islands, and by the 1st of 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 visits;
for in summer it is found, but in smaller numbers, in Iceland tand Greenland. Independently of the
localities above mentioned, the Land-Rail is found all over Europe, from north to so u th ; and in one or
other p art o f the year, from Madeira in the Atlantic, throughout Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and as far
eastward as Afghanistan.
Soon after its arrival in spring, this restless migrant settles itself in some low grassy mead, field of clover
or com, o r bed of osiers, and the 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 of 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 o f September is usually too late for the sportsman
to benefit by more than a remnant of the thousands that m u st have been bred in our islands. The great
mass of 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 th at Land-Rails are
often killed in September, and even in October. A field of standing clover will even hold them longer;
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 of 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, or 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, or the standing clover! With what 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 at your f e e t;
a t 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 of 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, many 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 straightest of all birds’ ; 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
sporting-season; for it invariably drops within a hundred yards, and very rarely is it forced to rise
again. On my outward voyage to America a Land-Rail visited the ship when we were more than two