THE OOLOGIST 



Farralone Rail. 



While returning from a collecting 

 trip to Otay Valley one day in April, 

 1906, I stopped at Sweet Water 

 Slough, that is about the largest 

 slough around San Diego being situat- 

 ed between National City and Chula 

 Vista. I thought I would spend an 

 hour or so looking for Beldings Marsh 

 Sparrow or Light Footed Clapper 

 Rail. I found a deserted nest con- 

 taining five eggs I "thought looked like 

 Meadowlarks, but were smaller and 

 markings were very faint. On look- 

 ing around some more I located other 

 nests with in, two and three rotten 

 eggs and broken egg shells in them. 

 But just before I left I found a fine 

 set of seven pretty well incubated, 

 which took me about three hours to 

 blow, on looking them up I found they 

 were Black Rail, there being no sub- 

 species then. So several days' later, 

 on telling an egg collector friend of 

 mine about it, we journeyed down 

 there for another look. Although it 

 was raining, I located two sets of 

 seven and one set of eight; the larg- 

 est set I know of being collected on 

 the coast. I don't know whether they 

 are found any where else on the coast 

 or not, but about two years later there 

 was an article published on their nest- 

 ing, but my friend got the credit for it. 

 Sometimes I think there are twenty- 

 five or thirty pairs breeding there, 

 then again, another year you cannot 

 locate a single nest. 



The average sets contain five eggs 

 but they run from four to eight eggs 

 although all the large sets there are 

 two and three eggs that don't hatch on 

 account of the bird being so small she 

 cannot cover them. I have found 

 them nesting in all the different 

 sloughs around San Diego. They nest 

 higher and dryer than the Clapper 

 Rail, nesting way back where the 

 ground is practically dry, except on 



flood tides. They nest very early on 

 account of the high tides in May and 

 June which would drown them out. 

 The nests are composed of fine marsh 

 grass, once in a great while using dry 

 seaweeds, most always on a raised 

 piece of ground on a small hump well 

 concealed. I never have seen a bird 

 leave its nest and get back on it and 

 yet you will find the eggs warm. They 

 look like a mouse running through the 

 grass, never flying unless you nearly 

 step on them or the grass is very thin. 

 Their homes are situated all the way 

 from twenty-five feet, right down to 

 the edge of a small stream and most 

 always setting on the ground. Some- 

 times you hear a male bird cackling 

 that is a sure sign you are near a 

 nest. You can get down on your knees 

 and part the grass by the hour to find 

 it, then sometimes you fail. One fel- 

 low told me every egg he had taken 

 represented eight hours' work. There 

 is quite a variation in the size and 

 shape of eggs in the same set, also 

 same sets the immaculations are 

 heavy and others fine Mostly all are 

 very finely marked. Sometimes you 

 will find where they have built a new 

 nest on top of an old one, making a 

 rather bulky nest for this species. 

 Most of the nests are so frail that you 

 have to sew them together in order to 

 collect them. The birds flight is very 

 slow and unsteady like other rails, but 

 if not knowing what they were you 

 would take them for young birds. The 

 young leave the nest about one day 

 after being hatched, like little black 

 balls of cotton. The old birds in in- 

 cubating sit very close, one reason for 

 making them so diffijcult to find. And 

 when they flush you don't know it. 

 Between the ants, slough mice and 

 short-eared owls a great many of them 

 are destroyed. The owls getting both 

 old and young ones, also the ants, 

 while the mice destroy the eggs. 



E'.'E. Sechrist. 



