LESSER CLAPPER RAIL. 205 



over the eye, brownish-white : auriculars dusky. Neck before, and 

 whole breast, red-brown. Wing coverts deep chestnut. Primaries 

 plain dusky. Flanks and vent black, tipped or barred with white. 

 Legs reddish-brown. The sexes nearly alike in plumage. 



LESSER CLAPPER RAIL. 



(RaUiis virginianus, Lin. Virginian Rail, Wilson, vii. p. 109. pi. 

 62. fig. 1. Penn. Arct.Zool. No. 408. Edwards, 279. Lath. 

 Synops. iii. p. 228. No. 1. var. A. Phil. Museum, No. 4426.) 



Sp. Charact. — Black, skirted with olive-brown; beneath rufous; 

 throat white ; wing coverts chestnut ; first primary entirely dusky. 

 Length 10 inches. — Female and young much paler. 



The Virginian or Lesser Clapper Rail, scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable from the preceding but by its inferior size, is 

 likewise a near representative of the Water Rail of Europe, 

 with whose habits in all respects it nearly agrees. But in 

 every part of America it appears to be a rare species com- 

 pared with the Mud Hen, or common Clapper Rail. It is 

 also wholly confined to the fresh-water marshes, and never 

 visits the borders of the sea. In New Jersey it is indeed 

 ordinarily distinguished as the Fresh-Water Mud Hen ; so 

 constant is this predilection, connected probably with its 

 choice of food, that when met with in salt marshes, it is 

 always in the vicinity of fresh-water springs, which ooze 

 through them, or occupy their borders. From this pecu- 

 liarity in its choice of wet grounds, it is consequently seen 

 in the interior, in the vicinity of bogs and swampy thick- 

 ets, as far w^est as the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and proba- 

 bly Illinois and Michigan. Its migrations, however, along 

 the neighborhood of the coast, do not extend probably fur- 

 ther than the shores of the St. Lawrence, as it is unknown 

 in the remote fur countries of the north, and retires from 

 18 



