THE CAROLINA RAIL. 18ft 



They are nowhere properly gregarious, but only acoi dent- 

 ally associate, where their food happens to be abundant. 

 For this purpose they are perpetually nibbling and boring 

 the black marshy soil, from which they sometimes seem to 

 collect merely the root-fibres which it happens to contain, 

 though their usual and more substantial fare consists of 

 worms, leeches, and some long-legged aquatic insects; the 

 Snipe of Europe also seizes upon the smaller species of 

 Scarahceus. Their food, no doubt, is mixed with the black 

 and slimy earth they raise while boring for roots and worms, 

 and which, in place of gravel, or other hard substances, 

 appears to be the usual succedaneum they employ to assis* 

 their digestion and distend the stomach. 



THE CAROLINA RAIL. (RaUui Carolinus.) 



The Soree, or Common Rail of America, which assemble 

 in such numbers on the reedy shores of the larger rivers, in 

 the Middle and adjoining warmer states, at the approach 

 of autumn, and which afford such abundant employ to the 

 sportsman, at that season, like most of the tribe to which it 

 belongs, is a bird of passage, wintering generally south of 

 the limits of the Union. 



They begin to make thjir appearance, in the murshef of 



