KAIL. 191 



gunner loading and firing, while the boatman is pushing and 

 picking up. The sport continues till an hour or two after high- 

 water, when the shallowness of the water, and the strength and 

 weight of the floating reeds, as also the backwardness of the 

 game to spring as the tide decreases, obliges them to return. 

 Several boats are sometimes within a short distance of each 

 other, and a perpetual cracking of musquetry prevails along the 

 whole reedy shores of the river. In these excursions it is not 

 uncommon for an active and expert marksman to kill ten or 

 twelve dozens in a tide. They are usually shot singly, though 

 I have known five killed at one discharge of a double-barrelled 

 piece. These instances, however, are rare. 



The flight of these birds among the reeds is usually low; and, 

 shelter being abundant, is rarely extended to more than fifty or 

 one hundred yards. When winged, and uninjured in their legs, 

 they swim and dive with great rapidity, and are seldom seen to 

 rise again. I have several times, on such occasions, discovered 

 them clinging with their feet to the reeds under the water, and 

 at other times skulking under the floating reeds, with their bill 

 just above the surface. Sometimes, when wounded, they dive, 

 and rising under the gunwale of the boat, secrete themselves 

 there, moving round as the boat moves, until they have an op- 

 portunity of escaping unnoticed. They are feeble and delicate 

 in every thing but the legs, which seem to possess great vigour 

 and energy; and their bodies being so remarkably thin, or com- 

 pressed, as to be less than an inch and a quarter through trans- 

 versely, they are enabled to pass between the reeds like rats. 

 When seen, they are almost constantly jetting up the tail. Yet, 

 though their flight among the reeds seems feeble and fluttering, 

 every sportsman, who is acquainted with them here, must have 

 .seen them occasionally rising to a considerable height, stretching 

 out their legs behind them, and flying rapidly across the river, 

 where it is more than a mile in width. 



Such is the mode of Rail-shooting in the neighbourhood of 

 Philadelphia. In Virginia, particularly along the shores of James 

 river, within the tide water, where the Rail, or Sora, are in 



