314 MANUAL FOR TOTING SPORTSMEN. 



and a cut of which is prefixed to this paper, though it is 

 less common to the northward and eastward the rail 

 shooter frequently gets a chance. 



Prodigious bags of these easily killed and dull flying 

 little birds are frequently made, particularly on the Dela- 

 ware River, in the vicinity of Chester, and about the mouth 

 of the Schuylkill River, in which localities as many as 175, 

 and even 200 birds, have been killed by a single gun, and 

 during a single tide, which does not, at most, give above 

 two and a half or three hours' shooting. 



Still, notwithstanding all this, and despite the admitted 

 excellence of both rail and reed-bird on the table, I 

 think the pastime but a poor one ; and if it were not that 

 there is little else to do at that season of the year, and 

 that it does serve to keep the hand in, one which would 

 be, to the full, as much honored in the breach as in the 

 observance. 



All sorts of absurd stories used to prevail about this little 

 bird, whose slow flight and lazy habits appear to render it 

 impossible for it to make long over sea migrations. It was 

 sapiently held, and I believe still is, by the James River 

 negroes, in Virginia, and the longshore Jerseymen of 

 Gloucester and Salem counties, that it turns into a frog in 

 the winter, and sleeps till spring in the mud. It is, how- 

 ever, clearly proved that it is a regular bird of passage, 

 often boarding ships at sea under stress of weather. 



