Photographing the Virginia Rail 



By ALFRED C. REDFIELD, Cambridge, Mass. 



With photographs by the author 



FIVE years ago I found a Virginia Rail's nest. Since then the camera 

 has come into my use, and I have sought in vain for an opportunity 

 to renew my acquaintance with this elusive bird. 

 On July i8, 1910, long after I had given up hope of finding a Rail's nest that 

 year, a friend told me that he had found a nest, and with a light heart I fol- 

 lowed his guidance across the rolling New England pastures, over tumble- 

 down, vine-clad walls, to a quiet lane that wound among the swamps which 

 separate the fields from the salt-marsh. By the side of this lane lay the meadow 

 in which the Rails were nesting. 



At one time a cranberry bog had been here. Long since, it had been aban- 

 doned, and coarse grass now carpeted a level plane, hemmed in by thickets of 

 wild cherry, bay-berry, and sumach. Two drainage ditches, now choked up by 

 rank weeds, and flooded only at the highest tides, crossed the marsh at right 

 angles. I had not expected the Rails in such a dry place, yet here, near the 

 end of one of the ditches, they had built their nest. 



VIRGINIA RAIL ON NEST 

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