98 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 
The tall grass about the borders of the 
island was alive with clapper rails. Before 
I rose in the morning I heard them erying 
in full chorus; and now and then during 
the day something would happen, and all 
at once they would break out with one 
sharp volley, and then instantly all would 
be silent again. Theirs is an apt name, — 
Rallus crepitans. Once I watched two of 
them in the act of crepitating, and ever 
after that, when the sudden uproar burst 
forth, I seemed to see the reeds full of 
birds, each with his bill pointing skyward, 
bearing his part in the salvo. So far as 
I could perceive, they had nothing to fear 
from human enemies. They ran about the 
mud on the edge of the grass, especially 
in the morning, looking like half-grown 
pullets. Their specialty was crab-fishing, 
at which they were highly expert, plunging 
into the water up to the depth of their 
first printed, —was some years too late. Mr. Ridgway, 
in his Manual of North American Birds (1887), had already 
described a subspecies of Florida redwings under the 
name of Agelaius pheniceus bryantit. Whether my New 
Smyrna birds should come under that title cannot be told, 
of course, in the absence of specimens ; but on the strength 
of the song I venture to think it highly probable. 
