THE VIRGINIA RAIL. 



445 



GIVEN an oasis of water of, say, two acres extent in a pasture desert 

 of barren green; crowd a company of water elms into one end; add a half 

 acre of bogs crowned with rose bushes ; then a little space of clear water ; 

 than a jungle of cat-tails at the other end; surround the whole with a thirty- 

 foot border of sedges and coarse grasses cropped close on the desert side, 

 and you have an ideal home for the Virginia Rail and his kind. Poke about 

 carefully in the edge of the rose-bog and you will soon start him, a sly reddish 

 brown bird with a red eye and a longish beak. See him some ten feet away 

 standing at the edge of cover, all alert, one foot uplifted and with claws curled 

 down; or when he plants it gingerly, he alternately perks and lowers his head, 

 as tho divided in his mind between darting away and facing it out with you. 

 Simultaneously he cocks his tail forward and relaxes it nervously. If you 

 succeed in looking sufficiently disinterested, he will snatch a slug hastily and 

 watch you furtively with a blood-red eye, to note whether you approve of 

 such actions. If you pass all the tests of good behavior during the first five 

 minutes, the gentle bird will relax his vigilance and show you how he can 

 walk over half-submerged vegetation without sinking very deep himself, or 

 if in the passage from bog to bog he comes to a space of clear brown water, 

 he will swim as 

 lightly as a duck, 

 but with that, odd 

 bobbing motion 

 peculiar to his 

 race. A single 

 false motion, how- 

 ever, will send him 

 s c u 1 1 1 i n g o f f 

 through the plant- 

 stems and out of 

 sight in a twink- 

 ling, cackling in 

 alarm and dud- 

 geon. 



Swamp noises 

 are difficult to de- 

 scribe. A verbal 

 transcrip- 

 tion serves for lit- 

 tle more than to 



recall to the writer a sound he has once heard. About all that one can safely 

 say is that both the Virginia and Sora Rails have call and alarm notes which 

 are characteristic and mutually distinctive. Virginia's alarm has been com- 



rain County. Photo by the Authc 



ANOTHER "NEEDLE IN A HAY-STACK." 



PICTURE AND WITHIN FOUR FEET OF THE CAMERA BUT THE SCREEN 

 OF REEDS AND HER OWN PROTECTIVE COLORS 

 RENDER HER INVISIBLE. 



