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Examples
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A mist had risen from the river; there was no wind; from all round came the cry of the corn-crake, and faint sounds from the mill-wheels of drops that dripped from the paddles and of water gurgling through the bars of the lock.
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"Mavis," he had said bitterly, "a song thrush, how inaptly named - a corn-crake of a woman - a mastodon of a female - an extinct mammalian creature with nipple-shaped prominences on her molar teeth."
The Fifth Rapunzel Gill, B. M. 1991
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I did not go to bed at all that night; but sat looking out over the quiet, moon-lit garden and over the fields beyond, where the corn-crake was calling, calling; the river slipping like a silver thread at the far-away end of them; and patter, patter out and into the back-garden at
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Now and again a corn-crake, moving in silence, bowed to the ground, but betrayed by its loquacity.
"Wee Tim'rous Beasties" Studies of Animal life and Character Douglas English
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From out of the darkness in the direction of Stapleton sounded the monotonous note of a corn-crake.
The Pothunters 1928
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The craik amang the claver hay, [corn-crake, clover]
Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907
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She's quiet for five minutes then bursts out into song again like a chirruping cricket or a croaking corn-crake.
A Popular Schoolgirl Angela Brazil 1907
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Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling; and a corn-crake churred in the young wheat.
Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works John Galsworthy 1900
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Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling; and a corn-crake churred in the young wheat.
The Dark Flower John Galsworthy 1900
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As we went, the folk on the bank talked indeed, mingling their kind voices with the cuckoo's song, the sweet strong whistle of the blackbirds and the ceaseless note of the corn-crake as he crept through the long grass of the mowing-field; whence came the waves of fragrance from the flowering clover amidst of the ripe grass.
News from Nowhere 1892
chained_bear commented on the word corn-crake
A name (originally Scottish) of the bird also called Landrail, Crex pratensis, found in summer in the British Islands; it lives concealed among standing corn and the grass of the hayfields, whence its harsh grating voice may be heard.
"Heard a long gone song from days gone by
Blown in on the great North wind
Though there is no lonesome corn-crake's cry
Of sorrow and delight
You can hear the cars and the shouts from bars
And the laughter and the fights"
--"Lullaby of London," the Pogues, c. 1988 Shane Macgowan
February 7, 2007