THE RAILS AND REED BIRDS 331 



I have shot an occasional king-rail on the St. Clair 

 flats and on other snipe grounds, but believe I never shot 

 more than three or four in a day. I do not remember 

 ever having missed one. They are even easier marks 

 than the soras, since they are several times as big. 



Rails are excellent marks for young sportsmen to 

 begin on. The shots are so numerous that a boy will 

 soon learn to handle the gun and gain confidence in his 

 ability to shoot at flying marks. Mr. Alford, in a 

 clever paper in The Century^ some years ago, gave us 

 an account of a father giving his boy *'a day with the 

 rails." 



I have often, when in a duck-blind, observed the 

 rails running about quite near at hand and have seen 

 the little soras run out on the lily-pads floating on the 

 pond hardly a gun-length from my ambush. 



Rails have been taken in the South at night by the 

 light of a torch, the birds being struck down by a 

 paddle as they fluttered out of the grass. Eels and 

 catfish are said to prey upon the unrecovered dead and 

 wounded birds. 



The cry of the rails is a harsh chatter which sug- 

 gested the name crake applied to several of the smaller 

 species. When alarmed the nearest rails sound their 

 creaking cackle, which is soon taken up by all the 

 others in the vicinity, and the rattling noise is sounded 

 on all sides. The noise sounds something like kek ! 

 kek ! kek ! repeated rapidly. 



When they first arrive the rails are in poor condi- 

 tion, but they soon become very fat and are regarded 

 as excellent food. Dr. Lewis says they are delicious 

 for the table, '*in truth we are very partial to this bird, 



