The California Clapper Rail 



Where this shelter is denied them, a heavy stand of salicornia will do, but 

 especially one where drift material is upborne as a sort of canopy by the 

 tops of the growing plants. A heavy platform of similar drift material, 



Taken in San Mateo County 



Photo by the A itthor 



NEST AND EGGS OF CALIFORNIA CLAPPER RAIL 



dead grasses and dried tule-stems, is built up on the sodden ground to a 

 height of four or five inches. Here in a hollow seven inches across and from 

 one to three inches in depth, a complement of eight or nine eggs is placed. 

 The eggs are of a "lovely" ivory-yellow color, sparingly dotted and spotted 

 with liver-brown or chocolate. 



The nest in most cases is approached by a runway, a sort of tunnel 

 driven through the matted vegetation, and this sometimes reaches quite to 

 the bank of the nearest tide-gut. Sometimes the sitting bird will flush only 

 under the tap of a beating-stick — the collector's divining rod — but oftener 

 it manages to anticipate the collector's approach by a run of four or five 

 feet previous to rising. One bird which I put up was so flustered that she 

 fell souse into the water and swam off looking over her shoulder. 



Not only have these poor birds suffered terribly at the hands of gun- 

 ners, but their numbers have been still further reduced by the depredations 



!532 



