VIRGINIA RAIL; MEADOW-HEN 81 



Aug. 1, 1858. Edward Bartlett ^ and another brought 

 me a green bittern, this year's bird, apparently full 

 grown but not full plumaged, which they caught near 

 the pool on A. Iley wood's land behind Sleepy Hollow. 

 They caught it in the woods on the hillside. It had not 

 yet acquired the long feathers of the neck. The neck 

 was bent back on itself an inch or more, — that part 

 being bare of feathers and covered by the long feathers 

 from above, — so that it did not appear very long until 

 stretched out. This doubling was the usual condition 

 and not apparent, but could be felt by the hand. So 

 the green bitterns are leaving the nest now. 



VIRGINIA RAIL; MEADOW-HEN 



June 16, 1853. Coming down the river, heard oppo- 

 site the new houses, where I stopped to pluck the tall 

 grass, a sound as of young blackbirds amid the button- 

 bushes. After a long while gazing, standing on the roots 

 of the button-bushes, I detected a couple of meadow or 

 mud hens (^Rallus Virginianus) gliding about under 

 the button-bushes over the mud and through the shal- 

 low water, and uttering a squeaking or squawking note, 

 as if they had a nest there or young. Bodies about the 

 size of a robin; short tail; wings and tail white-edged; 

 bill about one and a half inches long, orange beneath 

 in one bird; brown, deepening into black spots above; 

 turtle-dove color on breasts and beneath; ashy about 

 eyes and cheeks. Seemed not willing to fly, and for a 



probably true. Cook appears to mean stream, and perhaps quid signi- 

 fies the place or ground."] 



^ [One of Thoreau's boy friends in Concord.] 



