288 GAME BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA 



"In Avalking along the slough banks at low tide quietly, they can 

 be seen wading through the soft mud, probing liere and there for 

 worms and insects, which mostly compose their food. I have also seen 

 them come out of the long salt grass along the shore, feeding here and 

 there at the edge of tide drifts" (Emerson, 1885, p. 142). The food 

 is made up almost entirely of animal matter — worms, crustaceans, 

 and the like, as afforded on the salt marshes. In the gullet of a bird 

 shot on a salt marsh, near an artesian well, W. E. Bryant (1893a, p. 

 55) found a good-sized frog. Several stomachs from birds taken at 

 Bay Farm Island, Alameda County, were found by us to contain only 

 parts of crabs {Hemigrapsus (yregonensis) . 



The California Clapper Rail has long been considered an excellent 

 bird for the table, and formerly great numbers were sold on the 

 markets of San Francisco. Kennerly (1859, p. 34) says that in his 

 day it was one of the most numerous of the water birds found in those 

 markets. So also says Suckley {in Cooper and Suckley, 1859, p. 246). 

 The weight of an adult bird, freshly taken by the authors, M'as three- 

 fourths of a pound (340 grams) ; so that the food value of a Clapper 

 Rail as regards size is not inconsiderable. 



The sport furnished in hunting Clapper Rails is of a rather tame 

 sort ; for the birds are ordinarily not wild, and, owing to their slow, 

 or sluggish, straight-away flight, are easy to hit on the wing. Unlike 

 many other game birds this one seems to be but slightly endowed with 

 effective means of self-preservation. When pursued, a Clapper Rail 

 is said to sometimes hide its head, ostrich-like, in a tuft of grass ; and 

 it is not an uncommon thing for dogs to catch the birds alive. For 

 these reasons, as well as for the fact that they are considered by many 

 to be excellent eating, these rails have been slaughtered in great 

 numbers. 



Few game birds in this state were more surely on the road to total 

 extinction than was this species just previous to the passage of the 

 Federal Migratory Bird Law. The reclaiming of much of their former 

 breeding grounds was concentrating them into smaller and smaller 

 areas, where they were still more easily sought out and killed. Ray 

 (1902, p. 24), speaking of the abundance of this bird in San Mateo 

 County, says: "As late as 1889, I remember sportsmen returning 

 with as many as 200 Clapper Rails while now one would find it exceed- 

 ingly hard to bag a dozen . . .". H. R. Taylor in 1894 (p. 153) 

 reported that an old market hunter of Alameda told him that rails 

 were becoming very scarce at that time in the Alameda marshes. 

 Where they had formerly nested in numbers it was difficult to flush 

 a single bird. This was believed to be due to persistent hunting 

 throughout the year. (Since then a summer closed season was estab- 

 lished.) Mr. Samuel Hubbard, Jr., of Oakland, has stated to us 



