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THE VIRGINIAN RAIL. 



-f Rallus virginianus, Linn. 

 PLATE CC CXI.— Male, Female, and Young. 



This species, which, although smaller, bears a great resemblance to the 

 Great Red-breasted Rail or Fresh-water Marsh-hen, is met with in most 

 parts of the United States at different seasons. Many spend the winter 

 within our southern limits, and I have found them at that time in Lower 

 Louisiana, the Floridas, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In the western country 

 some have been known to remain until severe frost came on, and there they 

 usually stay to a much later period than in our Middle Districts, from 

 which they generally retire southward in the beginning of October. During 

 spring and summer, I observed some in different places from the shores of 

 the Wabash river in Illinois, to those of the St. John's in the British pro- 

 vince of New Brunswick. In the latter district, they were considered 

 extremely rare birds by the inhabitants, some of whom brought me a few as 

 great curiosities. Farther north, I neither saw nor heard of any; but on 

 the borders of Lakes Erie and Michigan, they breed in considerable num- 

 bers, as well as near our maritime districts. 



In its habits the Rallus virginianus is intermediate between the R. 

 crepitans and Ortygometra carolinus: it obtains its food as well in salt- 

 water marshes as in fresh meadows, watery savannahs, and the borders of 

 ponds and rivers. The latter situations, however, seem to suit it best during 

 summer; but whenever both kinds of places are combined, or near each 

 other, there you are sure to meet with it. 



The time of breeding varies according to the latitude of the place. I have 

 found the female sitting on her eggs in the beginning of March, a few miles 

 from New Orleans; in Kentucky, near Henderson, in April; about a fort- 

 night later near Vincennes, in Illinois; and from the 10th of May to the 

 middle of June, in the Middle and Eastern States. The males usually arrive 

 at the breeding-places a week or ten days before the females. They travel 

 silently and by night, as I have ascertained by observing them proceed 

 singly and in a direct course, at a height of only a few feet, over our broad 

 rivers, or over level land, when their speed is such as is never manifested 

 by them under ordinary circumstances. Their movements can be easily 

 traced for fifty yards or so during nights of brilliant moonshine, when you 



