4 ALLEN, The Little Black Rail. eee 
bled those of a chicken; the legs hung inertly down. I saw an- 
other in February, by the border of the river at the Short Cut, 
flying with the same feeble and laborious motion from‘one tuft 
of herbage to another, whence it would not emerge till almost 
trodden on.” He says he never heard it utter a sound, but quotes 
from an old manuscript work of a Mr. Robinson, who “in de- 
scribing two that were brought to him alive in October, 1760 
[a date coincident with that of Browne’s work already cited !] says, 
‘their cry was very low, and resembled that of a Coot, when at 
a great distance’....‘ Several,’ he observes, ‘were killed acciden- 
tally, by the negroes at work; as they are so foolish as to hide 
their heads, and, cocking up their rumps, think they are safe, 
when they are easily taken.’ He [ Robinson] says elsewhere, ‘The 
negroes in Clarendon call it Cacky-guaw, by reason of its cry, 
which consists of three articulations; the negroes in Westmorland 
call it Johnny Ho, and Kitty Go, for the same reason.’” Mr. 
W. T. March, in a paper on the birds of Jamaica published in 1864 
(Proc. ‘Acad. Nat, Sci.) Phila. 1864, p./69) says: Phe exnysor 
this species is chz chi-cro-croo-croo several times repeated in sharp, 
high-toned notes, and heard at a considerable distance.’”’ He also 
states that it is ‘‘of frequent occurrence about marshy lands, and 
on the savannahs and open pastures in the vicinity of water.” 
With this we will dismiss the early history of the Little Black 
Rail, and turn to later records for the completion of its life his- 
tory, taking for our new point of departure Baird, Brewer, and 
Ridgway’s ‘Water Birds of North America’ (Vol. I, 1884, pp. 
377-380). Here Dr. Brewer says: “It is known to occur from 
the Delaware marshes about Philadelphia southward ; and is said 
to be more common inthe West India Islands than with us... . It 
has been found by Mr. Krider breeding about Philadelphia, and 
its eggs have been obtained.” Mr. Ridgway in the same work 
(p. 378) gives its range as ‘“‘ Temperate North America, north to 
Massachusetts, Northern Illinois (breeding), Kansas, Oregon, 
and California; south through Western South America to Chili; 
Cuba; Jamaica; Bermudas.” (As will be more fully noted 
later, the South American portion of the range should be elimi- 
nated.) From Dr. Brewer’s account we learn that the Oregon 
record is based on information imparted to him by Captain 
