NORTII AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 271 



Law. The roclahniiig of much of their former breeding grounds was concen- 

 trating them into smaller and smaller areas, where they were still more easily 

 sought out and killed. Ray (llt()2), speaking of the abundance of this bird in 

 8an Mateo County, says: " As late as 1889, I remember sportsmen returning with 

 as man}' as 200 clapper rails, while now one would hnd it exceedingly hard to bag 

 a dozen." Mr. Samuel Hubbard, jr., of Oakland, has stated to us that formerly 

 during high tides as many as 40 clapper rail could easily be killed along Oakland 

 Creek. None of these birds are to be found in that locality at the present time. 

 Accounts generally agree that the California clapper rail is much less abundant 

 now than it once was. Even the extended annual close season, in force for a few 

 years and now replaced by total protection, was not sufficient to protect this 

 bird; for its haunts are so readily accessible to the Bay cities that hunting re- 

 mained excessive. In 1913, the Federal Migratory Bird Law was passed, and 

 within two years a marked increase was observable locally on the Alameda 

 County marshes — proof that adequate protection long enough continued will 

 restore the species. The worst enemy of the rail now remaining is the Norway 

 rat, which infests many parts of the salt marshes, and whose depredations during 

 the nesting season have come to our personal notice. 



The California clapper rail is truly a native of the Golden State, being found 

 nowhere else in the world. It deserves protection on esthetic grounds, if not on 

 •economic ones. It is entirely within possibility that at the expiration of the 

 present closed term of years, hunting can again be safely allowed — with of course, 

 a small bag limit and short season. 



Mr Cohen (1895) writes: 



Rail hunting at flood tide is not the highest sportsmanship, as the rail take re- 

 fuge on high ground, and, when very little of that is exposed your dog is sure to 

 put up a bird almost every few yards. Occasionally these birds will climb into 

 & thick, short bush, common to the salt marsh, or sit contentedly on a pile of 

 flrift or a floating log, and at such times can be hit with an oar, but the birds 

 to-day, with the exception of one, were flushed before I saw them, and this one 

 was standing partly concealed among some salt grass in several inches of water, 

 and tipping his body quickly up and down; a common habit. .A^gain, the rail 

 is not a swift flyer, flying in a straight line, and when hunters are numerous one 

 of them will get the bird you miss if it flies his way, or mark it down and flush 

 it again and keep Mr. Rail on the hop-skip-and-jump until he is shot or has presence 

 of mind to sink into the water and keep his head out by holding to a stem by 

 his bill. This is a favorite trick of theirs when wounded. 



Enemies. — Besides the sportsmen and the rats, this poor rail has 

 other enemies to contend with, of which W. Leon Dawson (1923) 

 says: 



According to Mr. Chase Littlejohn, still another enemy has arisen to make 

 the life of this bird miserable — a certain mussel once imported from the East. 

 This thrifty bivalve flourishes and increases enormously in just that range which 

 has been from time immemorial the peculiar province of the rail; viz, the mud 

 strip just below the line of vegetation on the banks of the tide channels. Now 

 the bird must seek its living here or change its habits entirely. But the mussel 

 is a sensitive, not to mention a supercilious creature, and when our native son 

 steps carelessly it closes its doors with a bang — and often seizes the hapless rail 

 by the toe. So common is this that many specimens with maimed feet or missing 

 toes have been taken, and a few have been captured right where they were being 

 held captive by the mussels. Others, more fortunate in escaping, are neverthe- 

 less condemned to drag about a hall on the foot, n mass of dried mud and trash 



