Whenever we flush a landrail we wonder that so slovenly a bird should
be able to cross seas in migration. One doubts its ability to cross
a wide river. Those who for the first time see a landrail rise might
be excused for supposing it to be wounded--the long legs trail at
full length, hardly clearing the heads of the clover which forms its
favourite cover. Few birds are so slow in flight, certainly no other
game-birds--if it is entitled to be classed with them, because, as for
woodcock and snipe, a game licence is required before it may be taken.
Beaters have surprised themselves by bagging landrails with sticks and
partridge carriers, and we have known a clever retriever to catch a
landrail in the air. In spite of her wide experience, the dog mistook
the landrail for a wounded bird when it rose, in its heavy way, some
twenty yards before her, while she quested for a partridge. As if in
revenge for having been fooled, she gave furious chase, and retrieved
it. Flushed in a gale of wind, a landrail will make some progress,
though its flight at first is rather suggestive of a wind-driven leaf.
But after a time the flight grows stronger, as though the wings had
worked off some stiffness. No bird seems less willing to be seen than
the landrail. Yet it will make itself heard almost continuously from
the first streak of dawn until darkness. Its harsh-toned "Crake, crake,
crake," seems close at hand at one moment, then far away, suggesting
that the bird is swift enough on its legs, if slow in flight. It does
not travel far, having arrived from its over-sea journey, haunting, as
a rule, one chosen field, where it is seen only by the mower, who may
accidentally wound the close-crouching bird with his scythe. Landrails
seem to become more scarce every year, and this is often put down to
the mowing machine, which it is claimed is more fatal to sitting birds
than the scythe. But birds usually run from their nests before the
approach of the noisy, whirring machines, and, if they are caught,
seldom suffer more than a cut leg; whereas the scythe comes upon them
almost unawares, and strikes fatally. Probably some influences bearing
upon the migration of landrails have more to do with their scarcity
than unnatural destruction. Hiding so closely in the grass or the corn,
landrails seem to have every chance of long life in this country.
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