Species II. RALLUS VIRGINIANUS. 



VIRGINIAN RAIL. 



[Plate LXII. Fig. 1.] 



Aid. Zool. No. 408.— Edw. 279.— Lath. Syn. in., p. 228, No. 1, var. A. 



Tins species very mucli resembles the European Water Rail [Rallus 

 aquaticus), but is smaller, and has none of the slate or lead color on the 

 breast, which marks that of the old continent ; its toes are also more 

 than proportionably shorter, which, with a few other peculiarities, dis- 

 tinguish the species. It is far less numerous in this part of the United 

 States than our common Rail, and, as I apprehend, inhabits more 

 remote northern regions. It is frequently seen along the borders of our 

 salt marshes, which the other rarely visits ; and also breeds there, as 

 well as among the meadows that border our large rivers. It spreads 

 over the interior as far west as the Ohio, having myself shot it in 

 the Barrens of Kentucky, early in May. The people there observe 

 them in wet places, in the groves, only in spring. It feeds less on 

 vegetable, and more on animal, food than the common Rail. During 

 the months of September and October, when the reeds and wild oats 

 swarm with the latter species, feeding on their nutritious seeds, a few 

 of the present kind are occasionally found ; but not one for five hun- 

 dred of the others. The food of the present species consists of small 

 snail shells, worms, and the larvae of insects, which it extracts from the 

 mud ; hence the cause of its greater length of bill, to enable it the more 

 readily to reach its food. On this account also, its flesh is much 

 inferior to that of the other. In most of its habits, its thin compressed 

 form of body, its aversion to take wing, and the dexterity with which 

 it runs or conceals itself among the grass and sedge, are exactly similar 

 to those of the common Rail, from which genus, notwithstanding the 

 difference of its bill, it ought not to be separated. 



This bird is known to some of the inhabitants along the sea-coast of 

 New Jersey, by the name of Fresh-water Mud-hen, this last being the 

 common appellation of the Clapper Rail, which the present species re- 

 sembles in everything but size. The epithet Fresh-Avater, is given it 

 because of its frequenting those parts of the marsh only, where fresh 

 water springs rise through the bogs into the salt marshes. In these 

 places it usually constructs its nest, one of which, through the active 

 exertions of my friend, Mr. Ord, while traversing with me the salt 

 marshes of Cape May, we had the good fortune to discover. It was 

 built in the bottom of a tuft of grass, in the midst of an almost impe- 



(378) 



