XOinil AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 321 



colored below, in having a cliiferent color pattern on tlie head and 

 neck and in being lighter colored and more buffy generally. Thiei 

 breiast is ''light ochraceous buff, " unmarked with the dusky tips seen 

 in adults, paling to bulTy white on the throat and to pure white on 

 the belly; the flanks are as in the adult, but more brownish and less 

 blackish; the crown, hind neck, and upper back are less blackish, 

 more brownish and buffy, mth a striped effect, each feather being 

 centrally dark brown, ''bister" or "warm sepia," broadly edged 

 laterally with "light ochraceous buff"; the small white spots, so con- 

 spicuous on the head and neck of the adult, are entirely lacking ia 

 the young bird; the back, scapulars, and rump are much as in the 

 adult, but with rather less of the white, transverse barring and 'with 

 decidedly more and wider buff edgings, especially on the scapulars; 

 the wing coverts are browner and more buff}'' than in the adult, "snuff 

 brown" to "sayal brown." 



This plumage is worn, wdth practically no change, dm'ing the first 

 winter and spring; April birds arc like October birds. Apparently 

 a complete postnuptial molt takes place during the next summer arid 

 fall, wluch produces the adult plumage. Specimens showing the 

 beginning of this molt are lacking, but several September and Oc- 

 tober birds show the final stages of it. 



Material is lacking to show the annual molts of adults. Adults 

 are much darker colored above than young birds, with more white 

 bars and spots, especially on the forward parts, and the breast is 

 marked with Uttle dusk}^ crescents, the tips of the feathers. Audubon's 

 (1840) plate illustrates an adult. 



Food. — Very little is known about the food of this species. Mr. 

 Peabody's notes say: 



We have seen that the feeding habit which carries the yellow rail out of its 

 favored penetralia into the short-grass areas would seem to indicate a fondness 

 for insect food. Per.sonally, I am inclined to believe that fresh-water snails con- 

 stitute a large part of this bird's diet. Most of the nests in a colony visited by 

 me for many years, lay not over 100 yards from a sluggish little stream of fresh 

 water that meandered across a meadow largely alkaline, and the bed and mar- 

 gins of this stream v.'ere swarming with little snails. In Jime of 1923, as I passed 

 along this stream whose margin was narrowly fringed with grasses, left by the 

 mower, I twice flushed a yellow rail within a fcAV minutes, one of these dashing 

 into the water, in his haste to escape me, v/itlial the scanty covert. To corrobo- 

 rate this thesis comes Mr. Wayne (190.5a) to say that the yellow rails dissected 

 by him all contained snail remains in their stomachs. 



Behavior. — The flight of the j^ellow rail is said to resemble that of 

 the sora. It usually makes rather short, feeble flights just over the 

 tops of the grasses and drops down suddenly with uplifted wings and 

 dangling legs. But, when thoroughly aroused and intent on going 

 somewhere, its fUght is strong, direct, and rather swift. It can be 

 recognized easily in flight by the large amount of white in the second- 



