NSLS

ATE

eae

NOES

Czy.

Vieltar h Cosire,

SAbould and UH CTicctirs, del. Citde

   

CREX PRATENSIS
Land-Rail, or Corn-Crake.

Rallus Crex, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 261.

Porphyrio rufescens, Briss. Orn., tom. y. p. 533.

Gallinula Crex, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 766.

Crew pratensis, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., tom. iv. p. 470.

Ortygometra Crex, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool., vol. xii. p, 213, pl. 26

 

Tuers are doubtless many persons, with a taste for the ca

al objects around them, who are not
aware that our avifauna is composed of birds w

hich are stationary, as the Robin and the Wren, chance

; spring migrants, like the Swallow and the Cuckoo, and
autumn migrants, like the Fieldfare and the Redwing.

visitors, like the Hoopoe and the Oriole,

The autumnal visitors which come from
colder climates, such as Norway and Sweden, retire northward acain
5

a ; : about the time when our spring
poeors: arrive from Africa: these latter comprise, beside the Swallow and smaller sylvan species, the
Saxicoline, 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 of April, of fifty kinds of birds which had wintered elsewhere. No one of these spring aera 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 Ist 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 and Greenland. Independently of the
localities above mentioned, the Land-Rail is found all over Europe, from north to south; and in one or
other part of the year, from Madeira in the Atlantic, throughout Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and as far
eastward as Affghanistan.

Soon after its arrival in spring, this restless migrant settles itself in some low grassy mead, field of clover
or corn, or 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 nest; the due number of 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 si grow with unusual rapidity ; for
the barley is scarcely ripe before they can fly, and the Ist of September is usually too lets for the SROue tne
to benefit by more than a remnant of the thousands that must have been bred in our islands. The great
ar the south coast, waiting for the first favourable opportunity to

mass of both old and young are now ne
It is true that Land-Rails are

cross the water, and gradually pass southward to their winter quarters. :
often killed in September, and even in Qctober. A field of standing clover will even hold them longer ;
and some few must stay with us the whole winter,
at Christmas, and I once picked up a dead Land-R

for specimens are frequently seen in the London markets
ail, at Hawkstone, in January, which had apparently been

o 5 oO pot! aaa anee
killed by some bird of prey. But, as I have stated, the greater number depart in September—a circumstance

those who are fond of sport, or who possess an epicurean taste; for there are

Reg gireh to be oY How stealthily does the Land-Rail

few birds better adapted to gratify it, and still fewer that are its equal. eee
: clover! With what command does it utter its harsh call so

. . : i sto be at your feet ;

to deceive those who may be anxiously wishing to sight it! at one moment the eee oe Ae i
ts o in yonder 5

at the next it appears to be many yards distant, and so perhaps 16 1s 5 He i ae ce ten Seccneonie

eet : “di vithin @ yar im, and with uph
; Hace of W. alls the bird within a yard of him,

the aid of a comb and a piece of wood, calls - . and dairy farms
-e all is grass and dairy fa

moving grass and secures it. In the neighbourhood of London, where all is gre J 2

Mr. Bond tells me, many are destroyed in this way. nie
With regard to the flight of the Land-Rail, every sportsman

he slow rds’ e know that this species crosses

est, a e straightest of birds’; ye ae
ee eee ie oe f oe extent than any other of our spring birds, with the
or gree d

We -ann t | f wo eS W 1 y orea a a i u
a » e t * t fl I > 1 | |
C c

thread the grass, the corn, or the standing

that it is the most laboured,

t. to our astonishment, w
’

wide seas, and performs a migration
exception, perhaps, of the Wheatear.
exhaustion, when to cross only a moder
sporting-season ; for it invariably drops W

: erica
again. On my outward voyage to Americe