NAH'URAL HISTORY OF THE KING RAIL 



41 



Swamp Sparrow {Melospiza georgiana) , Black Duck, and Least Bit- 

 tern. The muskrat, raccoon {Procyon lotor) , and rice rat ( Oryzomys 

 palustris) are common mammals in the area. 



GREAT LAKES REGION 



In Lake County, 111., Beecher (1942, p. 13-14) found the Carex 

 Idcustris consocies or lake sedge-marsh wren community to be the op- 

 timum breeding habitat of the King Rail. Three nests were located in 

 5.39 acres (Beecher, 1942, p. 29). Beecher characterizes this marsh 

 type as follows : 



Although the Typha consocies is so distinctive in its chamcteristics, there is 

 considerable overflow of the si)ecies presnmahly finding their optimum, within its 

 bounds into the lake sedge which usually adjoins it in shallower water. Carex 

 lacustris tends to exist as a closed community ; it is more completely dominant 

 in its own zone and its boundaries more sharply marked out than those of any 

 other plant in the hydrosere. To state that it has the same lifeform as Typha 

 means nothing, since, though much coarser than the grass-like sedges which 

 follow it, the stalk offers little support. Nests of bittern, gallinule and blackbird 

 are decidedly less frequent than in cattails, those of the redwing being constructed 

 on a stool, generally. But the King and Sora Rails and the Prairie Marsh Wren 

 are much more abundant in this sedge than in cattails, suggesting that it has 

 qualities of its own. Primarily, it offers the tussock or stool type of substrate so 

 attractive to rails, and anyone viewing this community for the first time would 

 appreciate its fitness for the wrens. The growth is denser, less erect and, 

 doubtless, easier to work. 



The King Rail also formerly occurred commonly in the extensive 

 cattail marshes of the southwestern shore of Lake Erie. On May 30, 

 1931, Milton Trautman (personal communication) recorded 18 King 

 Rails in 1 hour in these marshes. Trautman further stated that in 

 the Sandusky Bay region, on many June and July evenings during the 

 years between 1925 and 1934, he saw from one to eight broods on 

 roads adjacent to marshes. At Buckeye Lake in east-central Ohio, 

 Trautman (1940, p. 229-230) reported more than 50 pairs nesting 

 annually between 1922 and 1930. Trautman told me that by 1959 

 only two or three pairs nested there. Surveys in 1961 by Trautman 

 and others to determine the status of the King Rail in Ohio revealed 

 that it was disappearing at an alarming rate. 



In Ontario, Baillie (1940, p. 109) reported five breeding localities 

 (based on the presence of nests or broods) along the southern edge 

 of Ontario from Lake St. Clair to Toronto : St. Anne's Island, Lake 

 St. Clair, Lambton County, May 1882 (nest of 13 eggs) ; eastern end 

 of the north shore of Lake Erie, at Point Abino, Welland County, 

 May 30, 1894 (nest of 10 eggs) ; north shore of Lake Erie, at Long 

 Point, Norfolk County, summer of 1921 and 1926 (young) ; western 

 end of the north shore of Lake Ontario at Toronto, August 22, 1938 

 (yoimg) ; and at Hamilton, August 6, 1939 (young). 



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