'X'hc Yellow Rail {Porzana novehoracensis) 



By Lynds Jones 



Description. — Adult: Prevailing color ochraceous-buff, clearest on breast; 

 upper parts heavily striped with dark brownish anteriorly, and with black pos- 

 teriorly ; feathers of back and scapulars, and inner quills with very narrow subter- 

 minal bars of white, some of the feathers twice or three times crossed with white ; 

 edge of wing white ; wing-quills light fuscous, the inner secondaries broadly tipped 

 with white ; a dark brown spot on lores, produced indistinctly to include auriculars ; 

 axillars and lining of wings white ; sides and flanks dense ochraceous to dusky, 

 narrowly barred; middle of belly whitish. Length 6.00-7.75 (152.4-196.9) ; wing 

 3.30 (83.8); tail .51 (13); tarsus .92 (23.4); middle toe and claw .95 (24.1). 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow size ; marsh-skulking habits ; ochraceous 

 coloration. 



Nest, of grasses, on the ground in marsh. Eggs, 6 or more, creamy buff, 

 densely sprinkled and speckled on larger end with rusty brown. Av. size, 1.12 x 

 .83 (28x21.1) (Ridgw.). 



General Range. — Chiefly eastern North America, north to Nova Scotia, 

 Hudson Bay, etc. ; less commonly west to Nevada and California. No extra- 

 Hmital records except for Cuba and Bermuda. 



This little Rail possesses most of the common traits of the three preceding 

 species, but adds to them an even greater reluctance to take to wing, and is on this 

 account little known. It is said to frequent upland meadows as well as reedy 

 swamps, but such is its fleetness of foot and ingenuity in threading the wilderness 

 of bristling grass stems that even here it takes a clever dog to raise it. Probably 

 the only efficient method by which to study this bird is to learn its call notes and 

 so entice it to the edge of some secluded swamjj opening. It is said to be quite 

 pugnacious, and to respond readily to the supposed challenge of another bird. 

 Mr. Nuttall speaks of their ''abrupt and cackling cry, krek-krek, krek, krek, kuk, 

 k'kh,*^ and likens it to the sound of a croaking tree frog. 



Dr. Howard E. Jones has attained a special facility in the study of the Yellow 

 Rail, and the reports of his success indicate that the bird ought to be found not 

 uncommonly throughout the state. 



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