The Landrail
There is no better bird for the table than the landrail, but he is hardly a sporting bird. His flight is very slow, but he is sometimes missed by quick shots who have been shooting rapid rising partridges and shoot too quickly at these slow flying birds. The landrail has from 7 to 10 eggs, breeds successfully in insect-breeding seasons, and has been shot in large numbers in a single field. A little more than a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Farrer, Mr. C. W. Digby, and Alex. M. Luckham shot 24½ or 25½ couple of landrail in a field of clover-heads at the end of Nine Barrow Down, Purbeck; and in 1905 there were 26½ couple killed in the day about two miles west of this field. Sparrow hawks used to be trained especially for taking landrails, as mentioned in Chafin’s History of Cranbourne Chace, dated 1818. In 1880 there were 211 landrails shot at Acryse Park, Folkestone, and 35 birds in one day by two guns in two clover-fields. The landrail, or corncrake, is known as Crex pratensis.