308 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



to run among the reeds about us, uttering a harsh cackle 

 not unlike the cry of the guinea-lowl, and having a pecu- 

 liar metallic ring. It can be very well represented by 

 the syllable " cairk." Anxiously and impatiently she runs 

 in and out among the tufts while we remain in the vicinity 

 of the nest, loudly and angrily disputing our right to 

 examine the premises. As she hovers about us in the 

 reeds, now coming into sight a moment and then quickly 

 shrinking behind a tuft, she manifests considerable bold- 

 ness, hence we conclude she can exercise her sovereign 

 rights when she deems it wise. As we follow her restless 

 movements among the stems, we can note the main fea- 

 tures of her plumage. Her upper parts are yellowish- 

 brown, striped with black. Her throat is white, and the 

 cinnamon brown of her breast has led the sportsmen to 

 style her the "red-breasted rail." Her bill looks rather 

 longer than her head, and occasionally we can see the 

 bright red of the iris when she turns her head sidewise 

 in her remonstrances. 



The king rail is said to be irritable and quarrelsome in 

 its disposition, and it is especially overbearing toward its 

 neighbors. The species should be named the "queen 

 rail," for the female is without doubt the head of the 

 family. Is it not she who sometimes takes possession of 

 the homes of her meek neighbors, the gallinules? Is it 

 not she who defends her home so spiritedly when it is 

 threatened? Hence it seems to me that the king rail is 

 more king by marriage than in his own right. She lords 

 it over the gentle-spirited mud-hens with whom she 

 dwells, and frequently saves herself the labor of making a 

 nest, and the time to lay so many eggs, by appropriating 

 both nest and eggs of a comfortably settled gallinule. I 

 have frequently found nests containing incubated eggs of 

 the Florida gallinule and fresh eggs of the rail. On May 

 18, 1895, I found a nest containing eight incubated eggs of 

 the gallinule and five fresh eggs of the rail, the eggs of the 

 former occupying the middle of the nest, and the eggs of 

 the latter lying in the outer circle — indubitable evidence 



to me that the rail was the usurper of the home. 



The food of the rail is taken chiefly from the shallow 



water and the soft mud in its resorts. There it finds 



