Alder Flycatchers. There, also, — rare delight! — were Willow Thrushes. Mazes 

 of quill-reed margined the borders of the lake. Willow thickets of great density 

 crept out into the open meadows. Amid the quill-reeds there winged and 

 squawked a fair bevy of Night Herons. A fidgety pair of Marsh Hawks be- 

 trayed their nesting place. 



As I passed by all this one day in early June, lone Mallard drakes kept 

 rising from their snailing right at my very feet. Amid isolated clumps of willow 

 I roused them ever and again. As I finally emerged from the crowded willow 

 copses, I entered a wide expanse of coarse-grass bog, scatteringly set with clumps 

 of dwarf willow and Labrador tea. And right here the expectant ear suddenly 

 caught the far-away, measured Tick-tick, tick-tick-tick of male Yellow Rails, 

 amid the wilderness of quaking bog. Elusive enough is the Yellow Rail. Just 

 once on this meadow on my first visit, there rose from before me the white- 

 spotted body of a Yellow Rail. (I had cautiously moved nearer and nearer 

 to the spot whence came the uncanny sound of his clicking, and now felt sure 

 of a nest beneath the luxuriant grasses. But there was nothing there). 



And so, during the earlier years, my quest became centered upon the Big 

 Coulee. Here I was invariably successful; although, indeed, only twice during 

 fifteen years did I ever find more than a single nest in any one season. 



The reader may wonder how a search involving five acres of ground, yet, 

 at the utmost, with not over four or five local pairs of the Yellow Rail, could yet 

 have been so widely successful.. This wonder must increase when one goes on 

 to tell how masterfully cunning is the concealment of every nest of the Yellow 

 Rail. These birds are intensely local of habit. They are also, and especially 

 during cloudy afternoons and at night, incessantly vocal. They are also notably 

 fearless, where covert is dense. Never more than thrice have I flushed a Rail 

 of this species where the covert was heavy; yet I have often sprung them from 

 amid scanty growths of dwarf-rush or short-grass. Thus, the trained observer 

 learns to search the meadow reaches with every sense alert. He finds that the 

 male Yellow Rails appear to click their nuptial castanets always within re- 

 stricted areas near the nest. Here one may sometimes actually glimpse them, 

 only two feet or so away, amid the sedges. 



Right here one should emphasize the marvelous acoustic of the clicking 

 of the Yellow Rail. When heard at a fair distance it seems decidedly non- 

 resonant; but when one listens only a few feet away, this sound has all of the 

 hollow, throaty quality so characteristic of the Virginia Rail. _ This note may 

 be almost perfectly imitated by tapping a hollow beef-bone with a bit of iron. 

 The usual rhythmic form of the call is, _ --, — /--, — /--, — , etc. Thus, the 

 ordinary motif is in double time, with triplets in the second measures. These 

 iterations are very uniform, though with occasional variations. Now and then 

 a male may break into quadruplets toward the end of his half-minute series; 

 while an occasional bird may break the rhythm altogether. But the sound of 

 this clicking carries far. More than once, after toiling the meadow reaches until 

 after dusk, have I set out for my own roosting place a mile away, only to stop, 

 on renewed occasion, to listen to my Yellow Rails. With a keen wind blowing 

 in the opposite direction, I have distinctly heard the calls, not only from the 

 butte crest, two hundred feet above the meadow, but from the prairie, a full 

 quarter-mile away. In speaking of these evening calls, one is led to broach a 

 theory, namely, that Yellow Rails are quite nocturnal. This theory once 

 became clinched for me through a fairly uncanny experience (to be detailed 

 further on). A Yellow Rail cache (there was no real nest) contained at nightfall 

 five eggs. At 3.30 next morning there were six! 



Inevitably, with so fugitive a bird, even twelve seasons of close observation 

 could give one but a modicum of knowledge. Certain facts are, however, well 

 established. The males of this species appear to lose the vocal element of their 

 nuptial ardor as incubation advances. Likewise, the females, which are so 

 prone to sneak from their nests at some distance, under human approach, are 

 then likely to cling more closely to their eggs; and at such times are even flushable 

 therefrom. 



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