THE KING RAIL 223 



with us and the slayer of plover and baybirds 

 had a treat of which they still speak longingly. 

 There were literally thousands of them. Every 

 field of ordinary size had its flock or its gunner 

 lurking in the shadow of a rock or hidden in a 

 clump of weeds with a bunch of decoys before 

 him, intent on breaking all former records of 

 slaughter. The thoughts of the juicy ''feeds" 

 of those days make my mouth water yet. 



THE KING RAIL. 



(Rallus elegans.) 



Just what percentage of the population of 

 our marshes is made up of the rail family it is 

 difficult to say, but it is surely a large propor- 

 tion. They are constantly changing residence 

 and there is a large ''floating population" hav- 

 ing no fixed abode. Often rails are numerous 

 in localities where their human neighbors never 

 suspect their presence. I once showed the con- 

 tents of my game bag to a man who lived on 

 the edge of my favorite marsh; in it were a 

 number of rails and he was curious to know 

 what they were, saying that he had lived there 

 all his life (where I had shot hundreds of them) 



