NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 283 



Egg dates. — Virginia: 46 records, April 16 to July 17; 23 records, 

 May 27 to July 3. New Jersey and Long Island: 21 records, May 

 24 to June 21; 11 records, May 30 to June 5. 



RALLUS LONGIKOSTRIS SATURATUS Ridgway 

 LOUISIANA CLAPPER RAIL 



HABITS 



A somewhat more richly colored race of the clapper rail inhabits the 

 Gulf coast regions from Alabama westward to Corpus Christi, 

 Texas. It does not differ materially in its habits from the Atlantic 

 coast races, except that in some places in Texas it is found quite far 

 inland in brackish swamps. We found this rail common on the low 

 marshy islands and mud lumps off the coast of Louisiana near the 

 delta of the Mississippi, where it was doubtless breeding in the long 

 salt-marsh grass. The coast of Texas, from Bolivar Peninsula, 

 which separates part of Galveston Bay from the Gulf of Mexico, to 

 Neuces Bay at Corpus Christi, is lined with salt marshes and brack- 

 ish meadows, which often extend many miles up the rivers. Many 

 of the islands arc low and marshy, covered with long grass. And 

 scattered all over the broad, coastal strip are numerous sloughs and 

 marshy ponds, overgrown or bordered with rank growths of marsh 

 grass and sedges. Throughout all of this region, which we explored 

 more or less hurriedly, we found the Louisiana clapper rail living un- 

 der ideal conditions. These marshes are so extensive that it is a 

 hopeless task to attempt to explore them thoroughly; the rails did 

 not seem to be particularly abundant anywhere, so we made only 

 spasmodic efforts to hunt for nests in a few places and did not suc- 

 ceed in finding any. 



My companion on the Texas trip, George Finlay Simmons, has 

 made quite an extensive study of the history and habits of this rail 

 in Texas and has pubhshed two interesting papers (1914 and 1915) 

 on the subject. The following passages, taken from his first paper 

 (1914) will give a good idea of the haunts of this bird: 



From the timber of the Brazos River bottoms northward and eastward along 

 the coast is the low, nearly level coast prairie of Texas. The only vegetation of this 

 prairie is the tall grass, usually burned brown by the hot summer sun and killed 

 by the cold "northers" which sweep over Texas in winter; here and there a 

 huisache {V achelUa farnesiana) and an occasional "motte" of three or four scrubby 

 oaks serve to break the monotony. A few slowly winding bayous cross this 

 plain, but the water in them rarely ever flows; these bayous are generally skirted 

 by timber, but many of them contain marshy spots overgrown with tall grass, 

 reeds, and sedge. At the mouths of these bayous the country is usually so flat 

 and low that the water spreads over a considerable area, forming innumerable 

 marshy flats and salt-water marshes, where tall grass, reeds and sedge grow in 

 abundance. In winter large numbers of ducks and other waterfowls attract the 

 hunter, but in summer these marshes are abandoned to the rails, mottled ducks 



