238 FEATHERED GAME 
at least half that number, while of the Virginia 
rails scarcely twenty have been killed in the 
same time. 
The Yellow Rail seems to be quite hardy, 
staying here after the other species have de- 
serted us and the ice has made in the pond- 
holes of the marsh. The writer has shot them 
when there had been severe cold for Novem- 
ber and after a snowfall of three or four inches. 
He is a beautiful little bird,—his body color 
a golden yellow, the feathers of his back and 
wing coverts jet black with yellow edges, and 
here and there speckled with tiny white spots. 
His breast is a deep golden yellow, growing 
paler below. Flanks and inside of wings 
barred with black and white. Crissum golden 
yellow. Length about six inches, extent ten or 
thereabout. This is the smallest of the rails 
ordinarily found in New England, though that 
extremely rare straggler here, the black rail, is 
even smaller. 
The Yellow Rail is a more inveterate skulker 
and, if possible, harder to flush than any other 
of the family. Out of the first six specimens 
which the writer obtained five were captured 
by the dog and the sixth only escaped the same 
