Rails, Gallinules, Coots 



lakes and meadow brooks, they keep well concealed among the 

 sedges while the sun is high or when danger threatens, coming 

 boldly out to feed on the mud flats at dusk, or when they think 

 themselves unobserved. Apparently they tolerate other galli- 

 nules' society only if they must. Quarrels arising from jealousies 

 over an infringement of territorial rights frequently occur. 



A gallinule strides from its grassy screen with grace and 

 elegance, curling its toes when it lifts its large foot, as if it had 

 taken a course of Delsarte exercises. Wading into the shallow 

 pool, still curling its long toes before plunging its foot down- 

 ward, and tipping its tail at every step, showing the white 

 feathers below it, the bird strides along, close to the shore, stop- 

 ping from time to time to nip the grasses and seeds on the bank, 

 or to secure some bit of animal food on the muddy bottom of the 

 water. Snails and plantains are favorite morsels. When lily 

 pads or other flat leaved plants appear on its path, the gallinule 

 runs lightly over them, upheld partly by its long toes and partly 

 by its fluttering wings. Dr. Abbott tells of seeing a gallinule in 

 his favorite New Jersey creek that went through the unusual (?) 

 performance of throwing back its head until the occiput rested on 

 its shoulders, and at the same moment the wings were lifted 

 lightly as if the bird intended to fly. 



But flying is an art this terrestrial wader practices rarely. It 

 depends sometimes upon swimming and diving, but almost 

 always on running, to escape danger, many men of science 

 claiming that a large part of its migrating also is done a-foot. 

 As the family parties escape under cover of darkness, arid steal 

 away as silently as the Arabs, who knows positively how they 

 travel ? A gallinule, equally with a barnyard chicken, appears 

 ridiculous and out of its element in the air as it labors along a few 

 paces, dragging its legs after it, and drops awkwardly to the 

 ground. 



The similarity to a chicken does not end with flight. In 

 appearance, as in habits, and particularly in voice, the water hens 

 and hens of the poultry yard have much in common. A single 

 pair in a swamp keep up clatter enough for a yard full of fowls, 

 "now loud and terror stricken like a hen whose head is just 

 going to be cut off," as a friend of Bradford Torrey's expressed 

 it; "then soft and full of content, as if the aforesaid hen had laid 

 an egg ten minutes before and were still felicitating herself upon 



185 



