FAMILY XXL 

 MACRODACTYLI, ILLIGER. 

 GENUS LIV RALLUS, LINNJSUS. 



SUBGENUS I. RALLUS, ILLIGER. 

 236. RALLUS CREP1TANS, LINN^US AND WILSOX. 



CLAPPER RAIL. 

 WILSON, PLATE LXII. FIG. II. 



THIS is a very numerous and well known species, 

 inhabiting our whole Atlantic coast from New England 

 to Florida. It is designated by different names, such 

 as the mud hen, clapper rail, meadow clapper, big rail, 

 &c. Though occasionally found along the swampy 

 shores and tide waters of our large rivers, its principal 

 residence is in the salt marshes. It is a bird of passage, 

 arriving on the coast of New Jersey about the 20th of 

 April, and retiring again late in September. I suspect 

 that many of them winter in the marshes of Georgia 

 and Florida, having heard them very numerous at the 

 mouth of Savannah river in the month of February. 

 Coasters and fishermen often hear them while on their 

 migrations, in spring, generally a little before day- 

 break. The shores of New Jersey, within the beach, 

 consisting of an immense extent of flat marsh, covered 

 with a coarse reedy grass, and occasionally overflowed 

 by the sea, by which it is also cut up into innumerable 

 islands by narrow inlets, seem to be the favourite 

 breeding place for these birds, as they are there 

 acknowledged to be more than double in number to 

 all other marsh fowl. 



The clapper rail, or, as it is generally called, the 

 mud hen, soon announces its arrival in the salt marshes, 

 by its loud, harsh and incessant cackling, which very 

 much resembles that of a Guinea fowl. This noise is 

 most general during the night, and is said to be always 



