NAjTURAL HISTORY OF THE KING RAIL 27 



Figure 11. — King Rail habitat on Seminole Indian Reservation, Glades County, 

 Fla., May 5, 1964. Predominant plants in marsh are bull tongue (Sagittaria 

 lancifolia), pickerelweed {Pontederia cordata), and dotted smartweed (Poly- 

 gonum punctatum) . 



SOUTH CAROLINA LOW COUNTRY 



King Rails are common to abundant in many fresh-water and 

 brackish tidal-river marshes of the South Carolina Low Country. 

 These marshes are along the famous rice rivers of colonial times : the 

 Ashepoo, Black, Combahee, Edisto, Pee Dee, Santee, Savannah, Wac- 

 camaw, Wando, and others. It was in such marshes that domestic rice 

 was grown until about 1915. Remnants of the old ricefield dikes and 

 canals built by slaves are still evident in the marshes (fig. 12). 



The dominant vegetation type of most sections of the marshes today 

 is giant cuitgraiss. Because of the blanched appearance of the giant 

 cutgrass in winter, these marshes were referred to by the early 

 explorer-naturalists as the "white marsh." Giant cutgrass provides 

 excellent escape and nesting cover for rails but apparently is of no 

 food value to them, although Purple Gallinules, Red-winged Black- 

 birds, and Bobolinks {Dolichonyx oryzworus) feed on its flowers and 

 seeds. 



A survey of the marshland in the Low Country from the lower 

 Cape Fear River at Wilmington, N.C, to the Altamaha River at 

 Darien, Ga., seems to indicate that the King Rail is largely associated 

 with the "white marsh" zone of these coastal rivers. It should be 

 emphasized, however, that many secondary plant communities occur 

 within this zone with varying King Rail population densities depend- 

 ing upon local ecological conditions. 



