RAIL. 385 



inch and a quarter througli transversely, they are enabled to pass be- 

 tween the reeds like rats. When seen, they are almost constantly 

 jetting up the tail. Yet, though their flight among the reeds seems 

 feeble and fluttering, every sportsman, who is acquainted with them 

 here, must have seen them occasionally rising to a considerable height, 

 stretching out their legs behind them, and flying rapidly across the 

 river, where it is more than a mile in width. 



Such is the mode of Rail-shooting in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. 

 In Virginia, particularly along the shores of James river, within the 

 tide water, where the Rail, or Sora, are in prodigious numbers, they 

 are also shot on the wing, but more usually taken at night in the follow- 

 ing manner : — A kind of iron grate is fixed on the top of a stout pole, 

 which is placed like a mast, in a light canoe, and filled with fire. The 

 darker the night the more successful is the sport. The person who 

 manages the canoe is provided with a light paddle, ten or twelve feet in 

 length ; and about an hour before high-water proceeds through among 

 the reeds, which lie broken and floating on the surface. The whole 

 space, for a considerable way round the canoe, is completely enlight- 

 ened ; the birds stare with astonishment, and as they appear, are 

 knocked on the head with the paddle, and thrown into the canoe. In 

 this manner from twenty to eighty dozens have been killed by three 

 negroes, in the short space of three hours. 



At the same season, or a little earlier, they are very numerous in the 

 lagoons near Detroit, on our northern frontiers, where another species 

 of reed (of which they are equally fond) grows in shallows, in great 

 abundance. Gentlemen who have shot them there, and on whose judg- 

 ment I can rely, assure me, that they difi"er in nothing from those they 

 have usually killed on the shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill ; they 

 are equally fat, and exquisite eating. On the seacoast of New Jersey, 

 where these reeds are not to be found, this bird is altogether unknown ; 

 though along the marshes of Maurice river, and other tributary streams 

 of the Delaware, and wherever the reeds abound, the Rail are sure to 

 be found also. Most of them leave Pennsylvania before the end of 

 October, and the Southern States early in November ; though numbers 

 linger in the warm southern marshes the whole winter. A very worthy 

 gentleman, Mr. Harrison, who lives in Kittiwan, near a creek of that 

 name, on the borders of James river, informed me, that in burning his 

 meadows early in March, they generally raise and destroy several of 

 these birds. That the great body of these Rail winter in countries be- 

 yond the United States, is rendered highly probable from their being so 

 frequently met with at sea, between our shores and the West India 

 Islands. A Captain Douglass informed me, that on his voyage from 

 St. Domingo to Philadelphia, and more than a hundred miles from the 

 capes of the Delaware, one night the man at the helm was alarmed by 

 Vol II.— 25 



