262 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ing and calling with a shrill voice "peep, peep," till the one half of the egg, the 

 more pointed end, dropped away. The blackish little creature showed some 

 traces of blood and seemed to have a hard time to free itself from the membrane, 

 and it took considerable time till it had extricated itself from the other half of 

 the egg, the whole process occupying perhaps 16 to 20 minutes. Then it shuffled 

 down to its brother and laid there gaping from time to time, where I left it 

 after having seen one of the most interesting phases of wild bird life. 



Audubon (1840) says: 



The young, which are at first black, leave the nest as soon as they burst the 

 shell, and follow their mother, who leads them along the borders of the streams 

 and pools, where they find abundance of food, consisting of grass seeds, insects, 

 tadpoles, leeches, and small crayfish. At this early period, when running among 

 the grass, which they do with great activity, they may easily be mistaken for 

 meadow mice. 



Plumages. — In the king rail the downy young is well covered with 

 short, thick, black down. The juvenal plumage appears first on the 

 under parts, then on the back and still later on the head and neck; 

 the wings appear last, when the young bird is nearly grown. In 

 this plumage the upper parts are much like the adult, but darker; 

 the upper back is nearly black with brown edgings; the under parts 

 are dull white or buffy white, washed with pinkish buff or "light 

 pinkish cinnamon " on the neck and sides; many feathers of the breast 

 and belly are tipped with dusky; the wings are much like those of 

 the adult, except for a few whitish tips on the median coverts, which 

 soon wear away. During September and October progressive changes 

 take place toward maturity, by continuous molt of the contour plum- 

 age. The pinkish buff on the under parts increases in extent and 

 intensity during September; and the barred flanks, in dull tones, are 

 .acquired in October or a little earlier. By November the young bird 

 is in practically adult plumage, though the colors do not attain their 

 full brilliancy until the next molt. 



Adults have a complete molt in August and September and a par- 

 tial molt of the contour plumage in early spring. 



Food. — Audubon (1840) says: 



When grown they feed on a variety of substances, and it has appeared to me 

 that they eat a much greater proportion of seeds and other vegetable matters 

 than the salt-water marsh hens. It is true, however, that, in the gizzard of the 

 latter we find portions of the Sparlina glabra; but when that kind of food is not 

 to be procured, which is the case during three-fourths of the year, they feed 

 principally on "fiddlers, " small fish, and mollusra. In the gizzard of the pres- 

 ent species, besides the food already mentioned, I have always found a much 

 greater quantity of the seeds of such grasses as grow in the places frequented by 

 them. On one occasion I found the gizzard crammed with seeds of the cane 

 {Arundo tecla); and that of another contained a large quantity of the seed of 

 the common oat, which had evidently been picked up on a newly-sown field 

 adjoining to the marsh. 



