20 Weber, Virginia and Sora Rails \j&n 



situated on Ninth Avenue between 205th and 206th Streets. The 

 eggs were scattered in and around the nest and had been emptied 

 of their contents by some animal, probably by a muskrat. I found 

 a dead rail in the vicinity but was unable to determine the cause of 

 her death. 



On June 1, 1907, I found a Virginia Rail on her nest, incubating 

 ten eggs, in the patch of rushes about half a block south of the 

 Dyckman Street subway station. The bird allowed me to ap- 

 proach within three feet of her, when I flushed her from the nest 

 by a sudden movement on my part to gain a solid footing. She 

 remained in the immediate vicinity of her nest while I adjusted my 

 camera, strutting about with her feathers puffed up and wings 

 spread like a turkey cock, giving her a rather formidable appear- 

 ance: at the same time she uttered a low grunting sound which I 

 had never heard from a rail before and quite unlike their charac- 

 teristic notes. The male showed his interest by his sharp kSck- 

 Mck-k$ck-k8ck calls, evidently trying to lead me away from the nest. 



The nest was placed in the usual position near one of the stream- 

 lets which intersect all of these marshes, forming an irregular net- 

 work, in the center of a circular bunch of growing cattails. It 

 consisted of a mass of cattail blades and stems, placed layer upon 

 layer, the foundation resting on the mud, so that the rim of the 

 nest was 7 inches above the surface of the water. The inside of 

 the nest was rather shallow, 4f X 4£ inches in diameter, and lined 

 with cattail blade chips \ to 2 inches in length. 



I discovered another nest of the Virginia Rail on June 6, 1908, 

 in the small marsh bordering on Dyckman Street, with two base- 

 ball fields adjoining it on the east and south. The nest was placed 

 within twenty feet of the street where hundreds of people as well 

 as vehicles pass daily and large crowds often assemble to witness 

 the Speedway trotting races or the baseball games. Yet the 

 little mother rail quietly sat on her ten eggs, apparently uncon- 

 cerned about the civilization around her. She was fully as tame 

 as the former bird and acted in a similar manner. I tried to 

 photograph her on the nest but she refused to return to the nest 

 while the camera was near it; I had no difficulty however in taking 

 snapshots of her as she crossed and re-crossed the narrow lanes 

 through the cattails made by the ditches of water. 



