Rail-shooting 279 



birds are in evidence in their Virginia haunts, and 

 a little while later in New Jersey and Delaware. 

 When shore-bird shooting on Broadwater Bay, 

 Virginia, there were few places on the marshes 

 where the clattering cry of the clapper rail did 

 not protest against intrusion. The meadow-hens 

 (for this is their common name) would often come 

 close to the blind, if long grass afforded protec- 

 tion, keeping up their din, a single rail making 

 as much racket as a guinea-hen. Now it seemed 

 close at hand ; if something was thrown into the 

 cover, for a second there was silence, then re- 

 doubled noise, and yet not a bird could be flushed. 

 When high water covered their retreats, I started 

 a few from the flooded marshes. They rose then 

 with hesitation, the flight being straight away 

 and slow, the birds dropping down at the first op- 

 portunity. In places, where from their noise on 

 previous occasions I would have sworn to a hun- 

 dred, only a few were in evidence. I noticed 

 them not infrequently swimming through the thin 

 grass, with hardly more than head and neck show- 

 ing, much like the manner of a grebe. Some- 

 times they would dive and swim a short distance 

 under water. Exposed under these circumstances 

 the note was never uttered. Their nesting-places 

 in the marshes were often covered by the tide. It 

 was a matter of great interest to me to ascertain 

 whether the eggs were destroyed, and I am con- 



