1 82 WADING BIRDS. 



red and pale purple, most numerous at the great end. In the 

 Middle States this bird is believed to raise two broods in the 

 season. The female is so much attached to her eggs, after 

 sitting, as sometimes to allow of being taken up by the hand 

 rather than desert the premises, — which affection appears the 

 more necessary as the male seems to deserts his mate and leave 

 her in the sole charge of her little family. 



About the 1 8th of June, in this vicinity, in a wet part of the 

 salt-marsh making into a fresh meadow near Charles River, 

 one moonlight evening as late as nine o'clock I heard a busy 

 male of this species calling out at short intervals in a guttural, 

 creaking tone, almost like the sound of a watchman's rattle, 

 ^kut-d-ci'(t fee- ah, — the call sometimes a little varied. At this 

 time, no doubt, his mate was somewhere sitting on her eggs in 

 some tuft of the tall marine grass {^Spartina glabra) which 

 overhung the muddy inlet near which he took his station. 

 The young, for some time after being hatched, are covered 

 wholly with a jet-black down, and running with agility, are 

 now sometimes seen near the deep marshes, straying into the 

 uplands and drier places, following the careful mother much in 

 the manner of a hen with her brood of chickens. When sepa- 

 rated from the parent at a more advanced age, their slender 

 peep, peep, peep, is heard and soon answered by the attentive 

 parent. The female when startled in her watery retreat often 

 utters a sharp, squeaking scream apparently close at hand, 

 which sounds like ^keek, ^keek, ^kek ; on once approaching, as 

 I thought, the author of this discordant and timorous cry, it 

 still slowly receded, but always appeared within a few feet of 

 me, and at length pressing the pursuit pretty closel}^, she rose 

 for a little distance with hanging legs, and settled down into a 

 ditch among some pond-lily leaves, over which she darted and 

 again disappeared in her paths through the tall sedge, scream- 

 ing at intervals, as I now found, to give warning to a brood 

 of young which had at first probably accompanied her and 

 impeded her progress. 



When seen, which is but rarely, the Virginian Rail, like the 

 other species, stands or runs with the neck outstretched and 



