NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KING RAIL 



83 



Similar feeding was observed in a Louisiana ricefield where adults 

 brought crayfish to young that remained in the same spot. 



As the young grow older, they not only accept food from their par- 

 ents but also begin to forage for themselves. An interesting example 

 of this dual feeding activity was observed near Woodland Beach, 

 Del., on July 29 and 30, 1959. An adult King Rail and three young 

 approximately 5 to 6 weeks of age were observed feeding on clams 

 at low tide in the bed of a creek. The adult bird dug in the mud for 

 the clams, usually inserting its entire head beneath the surface. It 

 would eat four or five clams and then carry one to the young. The 

 clams were swallowed whole. Sometimes one of the young, standing 

 next to its parent, would watch the digging operation and then start 

 digging for itself. The parent and its young were seen digging for 

 clams in the same place on both days. A raccoon also came to this 

 spot and dug many clams. 



REGIONAL OBSERVATIONS 

 Arkansas ricefields 



During March, April, and May 1952 it was not unusual to see 15 

 or 20 King Rails in the evening feeding along ditches bordering cer- 

 tain highways leading out of Stuttgart, Ark. The variety of rail food 

 available in these roadside ditches includes crayfish, tadpoles, frogs, 

 aquatic insects, small fish, and snails. Toward the end of May the rails 

 move out of the ditches and into ricefields, where they are found until 

 harvest. During the winter they are found about the network of rice- 

 field canals and natural drainage, often moving from place to place 

 along runways beneath matted vegetation. 



The King Rail feeds almost exclusively in ricefields during the 

 summer. About the only time it emerges from this cultivated marsh 

 type is to move from one ricefield to another. When a field of nearly 

 mature grain is drained preparatory to harvesting, the rails move 

 over to a field of younger rice which is often contiguous to the dry 

 field. Some ricefields have a few low wet spots which prove attractive 

 to rails, even up to harvest time; but the last feeding place in nearly 

 all drying ricefields is along the "borroAv" or ditch bordering the 

 levees. 



This typical bird of the rice country performs a service to the rice 

 grower by consuming large numbers of crayfish that bore holes in the 

 ricefield levees. A single large crustacean is usually torn apart and 

 eaten in the course of several minutes ; in one case the dismembering 

 operation was timed at 7 minutes. Small crayfish are ingested whole. 



Delaware Bay marshes 



In the brackish tidal marshes between Fleming's Landing and 

 Woodland Beach, Del., I have found King and Clapper Rails feeding 



