224 Union Bay 



per rail, a bird which had never been recorded from the 

 marsh. I carefully followed the margins where I had previ- 

 ously seen rails— tangles of cattails and rushes with thin open 

 spaces between them, and wet muddy ground on which the 

 birds could walk. The sora— brown, compact, and with a 

 short bill which gave it the popular name of chicken rail- 

 stood on a log and kindly allowed me the opportunity to 

 watch it preen, a rather elaborate proceeding which required 

 at least twenty minutes. The Virginia rail clattered loudly 

 from the rushes and two or three times slipped back and 

 forth from one point to the other in the foreground. It was 

 a surprisingly good day for rails, but although I carefully 

 watched every movement in the vegetation no out-size bird 

 appeared. Twice I covered the marsh without success. I ate 

 my lunch at the very spot where the bird had flashed by me 

 the year before. All I saw was a song sparrow as it slipped 

 among the cattails. Even though I failed to find a clapper rail 

 I was more than compensated in other respects. Something 

 about the day, perhaps its early crispness, or the odor of the 

 dew-covered vegetation as the sun struck it, or the harsh 

 freshness of the still and black water, or possibly just a strong 

 craving for food, seemed to stimulate the marsh mammals 

 and to bring them into the open. 



It was a good day for mammals, Not that I was ever sur- 

 prised when I saw them. I had seen them often before: the 

 beaver a few times a month, the muskrat perhaps every other 

 trip, the weasel at rare intervals, the otter a few times a year, 

 and the mink irregularly and in no particular season. But 

 they were not common and the odds were tremendously 

 against meeting many of them in a twenty-four-hour stretch. 

 This day proved most rewarding so that when I went home 

 I felt like a man who had held four aces at an opportune time 

 in draw poker or like the golfer who had at last made a hole- 

 in-one. 



During the day I thought much about these mammals 



