THE GREAT RED-BREASTED RAIL. \Q[ 



following memorandum respecting it: — "It is an excessively shy bird, runs 

 with great celerity, and when caught, cries like a common fowl." It 

 weighed eleven ounces avoirdupois; its total length was 20| inches, and its 

 alar extent 22. 



This species constantly resides in the fresh-water marshes and ponds in 

 the interior of South Carolina, Georgia, the Floridas, and Louisiana, from 

 which a few migrate, and probably breed as far to the eastward as the wet 

 meadows of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, in the vicinity of which I 

 killed one female, in New Jersey, a few miles from Camden, in July 1832, 

 in company with my friends Edward Harris and Mr. Ogden, of that city. 

 On inquiring of numerous hunters, I was told by several of them that they 

 now and then obtained a few of these birds, which they considered as very 

 rare, and knew only by the name of "King Rails." On recently examining 

 the museums of our eastern cities my friend John Bachman saw only one 

 specimen; and Mr. William Cooper of New York assured him that he had 

 never seen any other individuals than those sent to him from Charleston. 

 Mr. Bachman was present at the killing of a specimen near Philadelphia, 

 which was considered as a very old individual of the Rallus crepitans. In 

 Louisiana, the Creoles know this bird by the name of Grand Rale de 

 Prairie. 



As the Fresh-water Marsh-hen is abundant in South Carolina, I shall 

 attempt to describe its habits as observed in that State, both by myself and 

 by my friend John Bachman, of whose notes, delivered to me for the 

 purpose, I shall make free use. "Although not nearly so numerous as the 

 other species, they are not rare in that country, in certain favourable situa- 

 tions. Wherever there are extensive marshes by the sides of sluggish 

 streams, where the bellowings of the alligator are heard at intervals, and the 

 pipings of myriads of frogs fill the air, there is found the Fresh-water Marsh- 

 hen, and there it may be seen gliding swiftly among the tangled rank 

 grasses and aquatic weeds, or standing on the broad leaves of the yellow 

 cyamus and fragrant water-lily ', or forcing its way through the dense 

 foliage of pontederise and sagitt arise. There, during the sickly season, it 

 remains secure from the search of man, and there, on some hillock or little 

 island of the marsh, it builds its nest. In such places I have found so many 

 as twenty pairs breeding within a space having a diameter of thirty yards. 

 The nests were placed on the ground, and raised to the height of six or 

 eight inches by means of withered weeds and grasses. The number of eggs 

 was nine or ten. About the middle of March I found a few nests contain- 

 ing two or three eggs each; but, in my opinion, the greater number of these 

 birds commence breeding about the middle of April. They appear to repair 



