142 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



The nest is placed among the sedges in floating bogs or in 

 the tussocks of sedges and grass along the edge of meadows, 

 being generally roofed over or arched. Five to fifteen eggs 

 are laid, and these are ochraceous buff of a darker color than 

 eggs of the Virginia Rail, and spotted with reddish brown. 

 The spots are heavier and more numerous about the larger end. 

 Five eggs from near Palmyra, July 22, 1894, measure 1.26 x 

 0.90, 1.25 X 0.90, 1.30 x 0.89, 1.25 x 0.90, 1.24 x 0.86. The 

 nest was composed entirely of dried meadow grass and was 

 woven in saucer form and placed in a large tussock of grass. 



When disturbed the birds skulk about through the sedges 

 and bogs uttering a peculiar "kuk-kuk-kuk" varied by a pecu- 

 liar whistling sound not unlike the note of the Red-winged 

 Blackbird. Their food does not differ materially from that of 

 the Virginia Rail, consisting of a great variety of worms and 

 marsh inhabiting insects. 



/. 



Subgenus COTURNICOPS Bonaparte. 



215. Porzana noveboracensis (Gmel.). Yellow Rail; Yel- 

 low Crake. 



Plumage : feathers of the upper parts striped with black, bordered with 

 ochraceous and narrowly barred with white ; head, neck and breast ochra- 

 ceous ; secondaries, under wing coverts and axillars white ; middle of belly 

 white ; flanks and lower belly dark, barred with white. Wing 3.00 to 3.40 ; 

 culmen 0.55 ; tarsus 0.91. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America, breeding from Washington County, 

 Maine, and northern Illinois northward ; less commonly found but still occur- 

 ring west to Nevada and California ; casual in Cuba and the Bermudas ; in 

 winter ranging southward, the exact or even approximate winter distribution 

 being clouded in obscurity. 



County Records. — Cumberland; quite common, (Brock). Knox; very rare 

 migrant, (Rackliff). Washington; found breeding, (Boardman). 



The exact habits of this most secretive and retiring little bird 



are rather unknown because of its very faculty for evading 



observation. It seems probable that it occurs in migration 



