SPECIES 3. RALLUS CAROLINUS. 



RAIL, 

 [Plate XL VIII. Fig. 1. Male.-] 



Soree, CATESB. i, 70. Arci. Zool. p. 491, No. 4Q9.~Little Ame- 

 rican Water Hen, EWD. 144. Le Rdl de Virginia, BUFF, vm, 

 165.* 



OF all our land or water fowl, perhaps none afford the sports- 

 man more agreeable amusement, or a more delicious repast, than 

 the -little bird now before us. This amusement is indeed tem- 

 porary, lasting only two or three hours in the day, for four or 

 five weeks in each year; but as it occurs in the most agreeable 

 and temperate of our seasons, is attended with little or no fa- 

 tigue to the gunner, and is frequently successful, it attracts nu- 

 merous followers, and is pursued, in such places as the birds 

 frequent, with great eagerness and enthusiasm. 



The natural history of the Rail, or as it is called in Virginia 

 the Sora, and in South Carolina the Coot, is, to the most of our 

 sportsmen, involved in profound and inexplicable mystery. It 

 comes, they know not whence; and goes, they know not whither. 

 No one can detect their first moment of arrival; yet all at once 

 the reedy shores, and grassy marshes, of our large rivers swarm 

 with them, thousands being sometimes found within the space 

 of a few acres. These, when they do venture on wing, seem 

 to fly so feebly, and in such short fluttering flights among the 

 the reeds, as to render it highly improbable, to most people, 

 that they could possibly make their way over an extensive tract 

 of country. Yet, on the first smart frost that occurs, the whole 

 suddenly disappear, as if they had never been. 



* Rallus Carolinus, Lus..Syst. p. 153, JV0. 5, ed- IQ.Gallinula Carolina, 

 LATH. Ind. Orn. p. 771, JVb. 17. 

 VOL. III. B b 



