YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 253 
after birth. I am induced to believe that two, or perhaps three, broods 
are reared in the season. 
The flight of this pretty little bird is rather swift, and more pro- 
tracted than that of some of our Rails, especially when put up by a 
dog coming inadvertently upon it. At other times, when in places 
not frequented, it rises and removes to a distance rarely exceeding 
thirty or forty yards, falling as it were among the grass with wings 
stretched upwards and dangling legs. The gizzard is large and mus- 
cular, as in the Water-hen and our other Rails. One which I opened 
was filled with minute fresh-water shell-fish and gravel. They feed 
also on insects of various kinds, and the seeds of grasses. 
My friend Tuomas Nutraut has so well described the notes of 
this bird, that I cannot do better than present you with his account of 
them. ‘On the 6th of October (1831), having spent the night in a 
lodge, on the borders of Fresh Pond, employed for decoying and shoot- 
ing Ducks, I heard, about sunrise, the Yellow-breasted Rails begin to 
stir among the reeds (Arundo Phragmites) that thickly skirt this retired 
border of the lake, and in which, among a host of various kinds of 
Blackbirds, they had for sometime roosted every night. As soon as 
awake, they called out in an abrupt and cackling cry, ’krek, “krek, 
‘krek, *krek, *kuk’ k’kh, which note, apparently from the young, was 
answered by the parent (probably the hen), in a lower soothing note. 
The whole of these uncouth and guttural notes have no bad resem- 
blance to the croaking of the tree frog, as to sound. This call and an- 
swer, uttered every morning, is thus kept up for several minutes in va- 
rious tones, till the whole family, separated for the night, have met 
and satisfactorily recognised each other.” 
I once shot a female bird of this species near New Orleans upon 
which I had nearly trodden as she was on the nest and about to lay an 
egg, and which she dropped as she flew before me, previously to my 
touching the trigger. In August and September I have found this 
species uncommonly fat, and most delicious. The dithculty of procuring 
them, however, renders them a rarity for the table even in those parts 
of the country where they are most abundant. 
I have no doubt that a few stragglers now and then go far north to 
breed, as I find in the Fauna Boreali-Americana the following note 
from Mr Hutchins’s manuscripts :—‘“ This elegant bird is an inhabi- 
tant of the marshes (on the coast of Hudson’s Bay, near the efflux of 
Severn River, where Mr Hutchins resided) from the middle of May to 
