Rails 255 



wedge-shaped bodies are perfectly adapted. 

 Compressed almost to a point in front, but 

 broad and blunt behind where their queer 

 little short-pointed tails stand up, the rails' 

 small figures thread their way in and out of the 

 mazes over the oozy ground with wonderful 

 rapidity. 



*'As thin as a rail" means much to the cook 

 who plucks one. It offers even a smaller bite than 

 a robin to the epicure. When a gunner routs 

 a rail it reluctantly rises a few feet above the 

 grasses, flies with much fluttering, trailing its 

 legs after it, but quickly sinks in the sedges 

 again. Except in game bags, you rarely see 

 a rail's varied brown and gray back or its barred 

 breast. The bill is longer than the head. The 

 long, widespread, flat toes help the owner to 

 tread a dinner out of the mud as well as to 

 swim across an inlet; and the short hind toes 

 enable him to cling when he runs up the rushes 

 to reach the tassels of grain at the top. No 

 doubt you once played with some mechanical 

 toy that made a noise something like the 

 peculiar, rolling cackle of the clapper rail. 

 This '' marsh hen, " which is common in the salt 

 meadows along our coast from Long Island 

 southward, continually betrays itself by its 

 voice; otherwise you might never suspect its 

 presence unless you are in the habit of pushing 

 a punt up a creek to get acquainted with the 



