86 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



mon resident, having taken other specimens December 23, 

 1889, and May 23, 1891. In Mrs. B. R. Samuel's collection is 

 a mounted specimen taken at Guntersville, and in the Country 

 Club at Montgomery is one taken near that place. McCor- 

 mack took one and observed two others at Leighton, in April, 

 1911. A specimen taken May 13, 1911, in the marsh border- 

 ing Mobile River, above Mobile, was probably a breeder. 



At Barachias, a nest containing 8 eggs ready to hatch was 

 found May 30, 1908 (Holt) ; and at Autaugaville one with 

 12 eggs on June 1, 1912 (Golsan). 



General habits. — This rail, the largest of the North Amer- 

 ican species, is exclusively a fresh-water bird, breeding in 

 low, wet, grass fields and about the grassy borders of rivers, 

 ponds, or ditches, as well as in fresh-water marshes. Bach- 

 man mentions having found (in South Carolina) as many as 

 20 pairs breeding in a space not over 30 yards in diameter; 

 he states that the nests were "placed on the ground, and raised 

 to the height of six or eight inches by means of withered 

 weeds and grasses.^ 



A nest found by Holt at Barachias was placed on a ditch 

 bank in a hay field; it was "a slightly concave mass of 

 Sorghum halapense, 8 inches in diameter and about 1 inch 

 deep, woven together about stalks of high grass."** 



Food habits. — This bird is said to feed on crawfish, frogs, 

 tadpoles, snails, insects, and seeds of grasses. Audubon states 

 that he once examined a bird whose stomach was crammed 

 with seeds of the cane ; another contained a large quantity of 

 oats which had evidently been secured from a newly sown field 

 adjacent to a marsh.* 



LOUISIANA CLAPPER RAIL ; MARSH-HEN : Rallus 

 longirostris saturatus Ridgway. 



State records. — The Louisiana clapper rail (fig. 2) is re- 

 stricted to the marshes of the Gulf coast, where it is per- 

 manently resident and very abundant. It is plentiful on both 

 Dauphin and Petit Bois Islands. Several specimens were 

 taken in the Perdido Bay marshes, January 27, 1912, and one 



tAudubon, J. J., Ornith. Biog., vol. 3, p. 28, 18SB. 

 »»Golaan and Holt, The Auk, vol. 31, p. 218, 1914. 

 *Audubon, J. J., Op. cit„ p. 29. 



