RAIL-SHOOTING. 199 
time—the sportsman lying on the bottom at full 
length in the stern, and the oarsman timing his 
strokes to the violence of the sea. The waves broke 
over us continually ; it was necessary to bail every 
few minutes, and several had to put back when they 
met with some more than usually heavy wave, and 
take a fresh start, after emptying the superfluous 
water. Of course we were drenched to the skin, 
but found a species of consolation in knowing that 
no one had the advantage of another. Had any of 
our boats upset, although we might have clung to 
them and drifted back among the reeds, we could 
have effected a landing nowhere, and would proba- 
ly have terminated our career then and there; had 
this happened to a certain little skiff that he'd two 
men and very few rail, this account would probably 
never have been written. However, fate ordained 
otherwise, and we reached our destination in safety. 
The best locality for rail-shooting is along the 
marshy shores of the Delaware River, above and 
below Philadelphia; many birds are also killed on 
the Hackensack and the Connecticut; they are 
abundant on the James River, and doubtless further 
south, but are not shot there; and they are found 
scattered over the fresh as well as the salt marshes 
throughout the entire country. Ihave killed them 
in the corn-fields of Illinois while in pursuit of the 
prairie chicken, and have bagged several and heard 
many among the wild rice of the drowned shores of 
Lake Erie. They are a migratory bird, and pass to 
the southward in the early fall rather in advance of 
