204 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



W. C. Pease. ^ A male, taken at Cambridge, December 30, 

 1896, is now in the collection of Mr. Alfred Hill of Belmont.^ 

 Mr. George Patterson shot a specimen at Ipswich, in October, 

 1901; it was placed in the Peabody Academy collection.^ 

 At Ellis ville, Plymouth County, January 20, 1903, an adult 

 female was shot by Mr. Clarence Chandler.^ A male is 

 recorded by Mr. F. H. Kennard as taken at Needham, October 

 10, 1907.^ An adult male was taken at Chatham, October 

 31, 1909, by Mr. Russell Bearse.^ (See also Appendix A.) 



As this Rail has been known to breed in Connecticut and 

 near Buffalo, N. Y.; as it has been taken in New York in 

 November, and is recorded from Maine and Massachusetts 

 in winter; and as one of the birds taken by Mr. Bowles was 

 very young, it possibly breeds in Massachusetts, and very 

 likely is less rare than it is rated. Its retiring habits probably 

 account for our lack of knowledge regarding it. Little seems 

 to be known of it except that it appears to prefer fresh marshes 

 to salt marshes. I have never seen it alive. 



Dr. Bachman, in South Carolina, seems to have had a 

 better opportunity of observing its habits than any one else 

 who has written about it. He states that he found twenty 

 pairs breeding within a space having a diameter of thirty 

 yards, and that the nests were placed on the ground, being 

 raised up six or eight inches by means of withered weeds and 

 grasses; but Wayne, who has also found numerous nests, 

 finds them in rushes or buttonwood bushes, from eight to 

 eighteen inches over water. He noted that the female laid 

 an egg each day after 11 a.m., and on laying the twelfth 

 began at once to incubate. This Rail frequents the swampy 

 borders of rivers and fresh-water ponds overgrown with vege- 

 tation. The stomach of one specimen was filled with seeds 

 of Arundo tecta; that of another contained a quantity of oats. 



1 Morris, Robert 0.: Auk, 1896, p. 86. 



2 Farley, J. A.: Auk, 1905, p. 409. 



' Townsend, C. W.: Memoirs, Nuttall Orn. Club, No. IH, Birds of Essex County, Mass., 1905, 

 p. 159. 



< Reash, A. L.: Auk, 1903, p. 304. 

 5 Kennard, F. H.: Auk, 1908, p. 218. 

 » Fay, S. Prescott: Auk, 1910, p. 220. 



