22 



Figure 7. — King Rail wading througli rlcefield toward nest on dike, Stuttgart, 

 Ark., July 13, 1952. 



nesting after an earlier first successful nesting. It is not to be con- 

 strued that this is an average nesting density for Grand Prairie 

 ricefields. 



Since much of the rail nesting in rice country is completed before 

 the rice is high enough to provide nesting cover, a better idea of nest- 

 ing density could be obtained from nest counts or mating call counts 

 in the spring when most of the rails are found in roadside ditches 

 and canals and occasionally in rice stubble. As an example, in April 

 1955 I located 22 occupied nesting territories along 6 miles of con- 

 tinuous roadside ditch beginning 2 miles north of Stuttgart, Ark. 

 (table 3 and fig. 8). 



In Evangeline and Jefferson Davis Parishes in LfOuisiana I found 

 many nests in roadside ditches where the dominant vegetation was 

 paille fine (maidencane) and softrush {J uncus effiosm). In Arkansas 

 Grand Prairie ditches in 1952 and 1953, nests were found mainly in 

 stands of softrush, cattail, common spikerush {EleochaHs palustris), 

 and lake sedge (Carex hyalinolepis and C. lacu^tris), a plant which 

 grows to a height of 3 feet or more and forms very dense stands that 

 persist intact through the winter. Lake sedge was available for nest- 

 ing cover earlier than any plant in the roadside ditches. Ten years 



