374 CLAPPER RAIL. 



rump ; legs and naked part of the thighs pale red ; feet three toed, the 

 outer joined to the middle by a broad and strong membrane, and each 

 bordered with a rough warty edge ; the soles of the feet are defended 

 from the hard sand and shells by a remarkably thick and callous warty 

 skin. 



On opening these birds the smallest of the three was found to be a 

 male ; the gullet widened into a kind of crop ; the stomach, or gizzard, 

 contained fragments of shell-fish, pieces of crabs, and of the great 

 king-crab, with some dark brown marine insects. The flesh was remark- 

 ably firm and muscular, the skull thick and strong, intended no doubt, 

 as in the Woodpecker tribe, for the security of the brain from the vio- 

 lent concussions it might receive while the bird was engaged in digging. 

 The female and young birds have the back and scapulars of a sooty 

 brownish olive. 



This species is found as far south as Cayenne and Surinam. Dam- 

 pier met with it on the coast of New Holland ; the British circumnavi- 

 gators also saw it on Van Diemen's Land, Terra del Fuego, and New 

 Zealand. 



Genus LXXVIII. RALLUS. RAIL. 

 Species I. E. CREPITANS. 



CLAPPER RAIL. 



[Plate LXII. Fig. 2.] 



Arct. Zool. No.407.— TuRT. Syst. p, 430.— Lath. Syn. m., p. 229, No. 2. 



This is a very numerous and well known species, inhabiting our whole 

 Atlantic coast from New England to Florida. It is designated by dif- 

 ferent names, such as the Mud-hen, Clapper Rail, Meadow-clapper, Big 

 Rail, &c., &c. Though occasionally found along the swampy shores, 

 and tide waters, of our large rivers, its principal residence is in the salt 

 marshes. It is a bird of passage, arriving on the coast of New Jersey 

 about the 20th of April, and retiring again late in September. I sus- 

 pect that many of them winter in the marshes of Georgia and Florida, 

 having heard them very numerous, at the mouth of Savannah river, in 

 the month of February. Coasters and fishermen often hear them while 

 on their migrations, in spring, generally a little before daybreak. The 

 shores of New Jersey, within the beach, consisting of an immense ex- 

 tent of flat marsh, covered with a coarse reedy grass, and occasionally 

 overflowed by the sea, by which it is also cut up into innumerable 

 islands by narrow inlets, seem to be the favorite breeding place for these 



