382 RAIL. 



Spotted Rail of the same country, which in its plumage approaches 

 nearer to our Rail, is another notable example of the same general 

 habit of the genus. " Its common abode," says the same writer, " is 

 in low swampy grounds, in which are pools or streamlets overgrowr 

 with willows, reeds and rushes, where it lurks and hides itself with 

 great circumspection ; it is wild, solitary and shy, and will swim, dive 

 or skulk under any cover, and sometimes suffer itself to be knocked on 

 the head, rather than rise before the sportsman and his dog." The 

 Water Rail of the same country is equally noted for the like habits. 

 In short, the whole genus possess this strong family character in a very 

 remarkable degree. 



These three species are well known to migrate into Britain early in 

 spring, and to leave it for the more southern parts of Europe in autumn. 

 Yet they are rarely or never seen in their passage to or from the 

 countries where they are regularly found at different seasons of the 

 year ; and this for the very same reasons, that they are so rarely seen 

 even in the places where they inhabit. 



It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that the regular migrations of 

 the American Rail or Sora should, in like manner, have escaped notice 

 in a country like this, whose population bears so small a proportion to 

 its extent ; and where the study of natural history is so little attended 

 to. But that these migrations do actually take place, from north to 

 south, and vice versa, may be fairly inferred from the common practice 

 of thousands of other species of birds less solicitous of concealment, 

 and also from the following facts. 



On the twenty-second day of February I killed two of these birds in 

 the neighborhood of Savannah in Georgia, where thev have never been 

 observed during the summer. On the second of the May following, I 

 shot another in a watery thicket below Philadelphia, between the rivers 

 Schuylkill and Delaware, in what is usually called the Neck. This last 

 was a male, in full plumage. We are also informed, that they arrive at 

 Hudson's Bay early in June, and again leave that settlement for the 

 south early in autumn. That many of them also remain here to breed 

 is proved by the testimony of persons of credit and intelligence with 

 whom I have conversed, both here and on James river in Virginia, who 

 have seen their nests, eggs and young. In the extensive meadows that 

 border the Schuylkill and Delaware, it was formerly common, before 

 the country was so thickly settled there, to find young Rail in the first 

 mowing time, among the grass. Mr. James Bartram, brother to the 

 botanist, a venerable and still active man of eighty-three, and well 

 acquainted with this bird, says, that he has often seen and caught young 

 Rail in his own meadows in the month of June ; he has also seen their 

 nest, which he says is usually in a tussock of grass, is formed of a little 

 dry grass, and has four or five eggs of a dirty whitish color, with brown 



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