THE VIRGINIAN EAIL. 



18 



while under tail-coverts. The nest of the Water Eail is sheltered by the thickest herbage 

 of the covert, and is made of coarse grass. There are about seven or eight eggs, and their 

 colour is buffy white spotted with brown. The young are odd little creatures, round, and 

 covered with soft thick down. Almost immediately after their emancipation from the 

 egg-shell, these little puffy balls of down tumble into the water, and swim about as 

 merrily as if they had been accustomed to the exercise for years. 



The general colour of the 

 Water Eail is buffy brown above, 

 richly mottled with velvety black. 

 The throat is grey ; the sides of 

 the neck, the breast, and abdomen 

 are slaty grey changing on the 

 flanks into greyish black barred 

 with white and buff, and to cream- 

 white on the under tail-coverts. 

 The bill is brown at the tip, and 

 light orange at the base. The 

 length of the Water Kail is about 

 one foot. 



The Virginian Eail is an in- 

 habitant of America, reaching the 

 Northern States about May, and 

 retiring to warmer regions in 

 November. Wilson writes of 

 this bird as follows: — "It is fre- 

 quently seen along the borders of 

 our salt-marshes, and also breeds 

 there, as well as among the mea- 

 dows that border on large rivers. 

 It spreads over the interior as far 

 ^\'est as the Ohio, having myself 

 shot it in the barrens of Kentucky 

 early in May. The people there 

 observe them in wet places, in 

 the groves, only in spring. It 

 feeds less on vegetable and more 

 on animal food than the common 

 rail. During the months of Sep- 

 tember and October, when the 

 reeds and wild oats swarm with 

 the latter species, feeding on their 

 nutritious seeds, a few of the pre- 

 sent kind are occasionally found, 

 but not one for five hundred of 

 the others. 



The food of the present species 

 consists of small snail shells, 



worms, and the larv?e of insects, which it extracts from the mud : hence the cause of its 

 greater length of bill, to enable it the more readily to reach its food. On this account 

 also, its flesh is much inferior to that of the others. In most of its habits, its thin, com- 

 pressed form of body, its aversion to take wing, and tlie dexterity with which it runs or 

 conceals itself among the grass and sedge, are exaotly similar to those of the common 

 rail." 



In some parts of America it is known under the name of the Fresh- Water Mud-Hen, 

 because it frequents those parts of the marshes wdiere fresh-water springs rise through the 



VIRGINIAN RAIL.— Ko»)(s Vlrginidnvs. 



