No. 36.] BIRD NAMES. 129 



extent thirteen and a quarter to thirteen and three quarter 

 inches ; the bill, measured along its side, one and a quarter to 

 one and a half inches. 



Found here and there all along the coast, but met with 

 oftener farther inland; a bird of the reedy swamp or marsh 

 grass ; widely distributed, but nowhere very numerous ; though, 

 perhaps, sometimes found fat, it has never been my luck to kill 

 one that was not in a rather emaciated condition. I will add 

 (as Mr. Sheppard has not shown the feet in his picture) that this 

 bird's toes are free, like those of our other rails ; that is to say, 

 they are without webs or membranous attachments of any kind. 



VIRGINIA RAIL: LITTLE RED-BREASTED RAIL: Wilson says, 

 1813 : " Known to some of the inhabitants along the sea-coast 

 of New Jersey by the name of the FRESH-WATER MUD-HEN :" 

 Nuttall, 1834, calls it LESSER CLAPPER RAIL and SMALL MUD- 

 HEN : Giraud, in Birds of Long Island, 1844, speaks of its being 

 "known to gunners and sportsmen" as FRESH-WATER MARSH- 

 HEN (a name more commonly applied to No. 34). The late 

 C. S. Westcott (" Homo ") describing " Rail Shooting on the 

 Delaware" — Forest and Stream, Jan. 1, 1874 — terms it RED 

 RAIL, and states " that where fifty soras" (species No. 37) "are 

 killed, but one or two red rails are boated." 



In the vicinity of Salem, Mass., it is distinguished from the 

 common rail, No. 37, as LONG-BILLED RAIL, but in most locali- 

 ties, in spite of longer bill, etc., it is loosely classed by gunners 

 and marketmen with No. 37, under one of the latter's common 

 names ; the difference between the species, however, being over- 

 looked rather than unobserved. 

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