Species III. B ALIUS CAROLINVS. 



RAIL. 



[Plate XLVIII. Kg. 1, Male.] 



Soree, Catesb. i., lO.—Arct. Zool. p. 491, No. 409.— Little American Water Hen, 

 Edtt. 144. — Le Ral de Virginie, Bcff. tiii., 165.* 



Of all our land or water fowl, perhaps none afford the sportsman 

 more agreeable amusement, or a more delicious repast, than the little 

 bird now before us. This amusement is indeed temporary, lasting only 

 two or three hours in the day, for four or five weeks in each year ; but 

 as it occurs in the most agreeable and temperate of our seasons, is 

 attended with little or no fatigue to the gunner, and is frequently suc- 

 cessful, it attracts numerous followers, and is pursued, in such places as 

 the birds frequent, with great eagerness and enthusiasm. 



The natural history of the Rail, or as it is called in Virginia the 

 Sora, and in South Carolina the Coot, is, to the most of our sportsmen, 

 involved in profound and inexplicable mystery. It comes, they know 

 not whence ; and goes, they know not whither. No one can detect their 

 first moment of arrival ; yet all at once the reedy shores, and grassy 

 marshes, of our. large rivers swarm with them, thousands being some- 

 times found within the space of a few acres. These, when they do ven- 

 ture on wing, seem to fly so feebly, and in such short fluttering flights 

 among the reeds, as to render it highly improbable, to most people, that 

 they could possibly make their way over an extensive tract of country. 

 Yet, on the first smart frost that occurs, the whole suddenly disappear, 

 as if they had never been. 



To account for these extraordinary phenomena, it has been supposed, 

 by some, that they bury themselves in the mud ; but as this is every 

 year dug into by ditchers and people employed in repairing the banks, 

 without any of those sleepers being found, where but a few weeks before 

 these birds were innumerable, this theory has been generally abandoned. 

 And here their researches into this mysterious matter generally end in 

 the common exclamation of " What can become of them !" Some pro- 

 found inquirers, however, not discouraged with these diflBculties, have 



* Rallus Carolinus, Linn. Syst. p. 153, No. 5, ed. 10.— Gallinula Carolina, Lath. 

 Jnd. Orn. p. 771, No. 17. 



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