CALIFORNIA BLACK RAIL 307 



set of four partly incubated "runt" eggs was secured. This set meas- 

 ured in inches. 0.87 to 0.95 by 0.69 to 0.74, and averaged 0.92 by 0.72. 

 He says that normal eggs average 1.02 by 0.90. The smaller size and 

 late date on which these eggs were found suggests that the set may 

 have been of a second laying, the first having been destroyed or the 

 nesting otherwise interrupted. Our averages for egg measurements 

 are 0.96 by 0.72, as based on Huey 's set, one in the Carriger collection, 

 a set taken by A. M. IngersoU and presented by him to the Museum 

 of Vertebrate Zoology, and a ' ' single ' ' in the same museum, fourteen 

 eggs in all. 



Cooke (1914, p. 36) gives April 7 (1910) as the earliest nesting 

 date known to him; while Willett (1912a, p. 33) says that the egg- 

 laying period falls between April 1 and 10. Downy young of the 

 Black Rail have not yet been reported from California, but they are 

 probably entirely black like the young of the eastern Black Rail. 



The call according to Huey (1916, pp. 58-59) sounds like the 

 syllables clee-cle, clee-ee, and in an earlier account (Stephens, 1909, 

 p. 48) it is said to be a sort of clicking sound. This accords with the 

 nature of the voice of the eastern Black Rail as reported by Brewster 

 (19026, p. 54). 



A bird which IngersoU (loc. cit.) flushed from near a nest rose and 

 flew off feebly for thirty or forty feet, hovered, and then returned to 

 within sixteen feet of the nest. Until it hovered the legs were left 

 dangling in the air, and as it alighted in the vegetation they were again 

 dropped below the body. This species is exceedingly secretive in its 

 habits, although it does not display any great amount of fear in the 

 presence of human beings. It will crouch and almost allow itself to 

 be stepped on before it will flush. A dog can easily capture one of 

 the birds and individuals have even been picked up in the hand. 



The shyness of this rail is reflected in the regularity with which it 

 abandons nests which have been discovered, even in the most casual 

 manner, by a human observer. Huey (1916, p. 60) says he has never 

 yet found a nest of this species that did not on a later visit prove to 

 have been abandoned, even when the nest and surrounding vegetation 

 had been left entirely undisturbed. 



A Black Rail which Huey (1916, pp. 61-62) captured was confined 

 on a screened porch with a Sora Rail. "... The two birds proved 

 quite companionable. They ate freely of the food offered them. . . . 

 The Black Rail . . . seemed rather vicious at all times, pecking angrily 

 at anything offered her — sticks, fingers and all." In attempting to 

 photograph these birds, "a small, round clump of salicornia, perhaps 

 three feet in diameter, was selected for the background. . . . The 

 little rail proved the more elusive of the two. She would dive into the 

 dense mass, exactly as a duck dives in water, and would then crouch 



