The generic habit of skulking seems habitual with the Yellow Rail. I 

 have spoken of uncovering these birds at a couple of feet, only to have them 

 slowly dodge away without flying. Just once did I experience a quite contrary 

 happening. A Yellow Rail ran out from dense grasses (it was not flushed), 

 swiftly crossed a broad expanse of smooth, prone, dead grass, stood still for a 

 moment in statuesque pose, some fifty feet away, before diving into the grassy 

 sea. And yet with this Rail the habit of running instead of flying seems per- 

 sistent; and one falls to wondering how many thousand generations of experience 

 in hiding from marauding hawks and diurnal owls were required to bring about 

 a habit so precisely duplicated in the almost incredible cunning of the nest-placing. 

 One fairly shrinks from recounting the results of the observations growing out 

 of this habit of skulking, so incredible are the things I have to tell. But one 



"SPOTS— CONFINED ENTIRELY TO THE APEX" 



must hew to the line in recounting experiences which have, I honestly believe, 

 been duplicated by nobody else on earth. 



The first-found nests of the Yellow Rail on the Big Coulee were all of them 

 placed among coarse grasses. In such cover, then, did I first seek. It is amusing 

 to recall how, although repeatedly warned that one should work his way through 

 the meadow growth with care, lest he crush precious eggs, I should still, near 

 the close of the first day's search, and weary with the unusual exertion, have 

 allowed my feet to drag a bit. Then, just at the despair point, I happened to see 

 an egg lying on a bare spot. Stooping to pick it up, I saw that it was what I 

 had been seeking. Assured that a nest was near at hand, I faced about, — only 

 to find that the toe of my boot had drawn away the canopy from the cosiest 

 possible nest of a Yellow Rail! 



In this case, it was plain that the nest-canopy was incidental. It was 

 just a mat of dead and partly prone grass, perhaps somewhat moulded by the 



37 



