1914^ J Simmons, The Louisiana Clapper Rail. 367 



longirostris carihaeus (?), identification uncertain." He was making 

 a specialty of the mammals of that locality and could not spare 

 the time during the nesting season to search for nests. 



In his small collection at Galveston Mr. H. P. Nettleton has a 

 mounted group of an adult and a half grown young of the Louisiana 

 Clapper Rail, which he collected on Galveston Island in the sum- 

 mer of 1901. He says that the birds are found throughout the 

 year in the marshes over Galveston Island, in localities where the 

 marsh grass is tall enough to offer shelter. 



Mr. Frank B. Armstrong of Brownsville, during his many years 

 of active field work in the Lower Rio Grande of Texas, has never 

 found the rails south of the flats of Corpus Christi Bay or along 

 the coast of Mexico, even in winter, which goes to show that they 

 apparently do not migrate, and that there is no connecting link 

 between the birds in Texas and those of Central and South Amer- 

 ica. 



Over sLxty skins of this bird in the private museum of Col. 

 John E. Thayer of Lancaster, Massachusetts, were collected by 

 Mr. Armstrong about Corpus Christi Bay and on Harbor Island. 



Thus we find the Louisiana Clapper Rail {Rallus crepitans satura- 

 tus) ranging in Texas from Louisiana to the marshes surrounding 

 Corpus Christi Bay. 



In the humid subdivision, or Austroriparian, of Lower Austral 

 zone of eastern Texas, it ranges from the water's edge as far back 

 in the semitropic or Gulf strip as the marshes extend — in some 

 cases thirty-five miles or more from salt water. From the western 

 edge of this humid subdivision in a southwesterly direction it is 

 confined to the marshes in immediate proximity to the open salt 

 water of the bays. 



Throughout this range the bird is a permanent resident. 



IV. Habitat. 



At the mention of the word "Rail," the thoughts immediately 

 turn towards brackish, sedgy, tide-washed marshes, inhabited by 

 water snakes, water birds and great numbers of crustaceans. 



In just such places along the Texas coast do we find the Louisi- 



