NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 67 



John W. Aldrich (personal communication) collected a fox snake 

 {Elaphe vulpina) that had several King Rail eggs in its digestive 

 tract, in Little Cedar Point Marsh on Lake Erie in Ohio. 



Alligators (Alligator mississipiens is) are known to take King Rails. 

 Kellogg (1929, p. 32) found remains of King Rails in 4 of 15 stomachs 

 of alligators taken in Cameron Parish, La., in 1926. 



Coulter (1957, p. 18) examined the gastrointestinal tracts of 157 

 common snapping turtles {Chelydra serpentina) from Maine marshes 

 and found bird remains in about one of every four. 



Forty-two specimens contained evidence of a minimum of 52 birds including 

 25 ducks, 11 grebes, 3 rails and 13 unidentified birds. 



No mention is made of the rail species taken. Birds the size of a 

 King Rail could easily be taken by a large snapper. As an example, 

 one 31 -pound turtle consumed five birds including one Ring-necked 

 duck {Aythya collaris)^ one Common Golden-eye {Bucephala clan- 

 gula)^ and three Pied-billed Grebes {Podilymhus podiceps). 



Hawks and owls take their toll of rails, gallinules, and coots. This 

 is to be expected since virtually all birds of prey hunt in marshes 

 as well as in uplands. Errington and Breckenridge (1936, p. 835) 

 found the remains of a King Rail in a Marsh Hawk {Circus cyaneus) 

 collected in August 1934 in the North Central States prairie region. 

 Errington (1932, p. 182) also found remains of a King Rail in a Great 

 Horned Owl {Bubo mrginianus) pellet collected in April 1930 in 

 southern Wisconsin. 



The Fish Crow {Oorvus os si fr agios) , well known as a plunderer of 

 Clapper Rail eggs, is also known to take eggs of other rails. Frank 

 C. Kirkwood and John Sommer found broken King Rail, Virginia 

 Rail, and Least Bittern egg shells beneath an active Fish Crow nest 

 at Gum Swamp Island, Blackwater Marsh, Dorchester County, Md., 

 on June 16, 1929 (from Kirkwood's field notes, 1929) . 



HURRICANES 



An interesting account of King and Clapper Rail behavior during 

 a hurricane in the Louisiana prairie marsh country was given by 

 Robert J. Newman (1957, p. 409), from information based on eye 

 witness accounts of H. W. Belknap, graduaite student from Louisiana 

 State University, and J. H. Sutherlin, Manager of Sabine National 

 Wildlife Refuge. Hurricane Audrey was Louisiana's worst coastal 

 storm of the present century and struck with its greatest force along 

 the southwest Louisiana coast on the morning of June 27, 1957. New- 

 man's report was as follows : 



Rafts of marsh debris, ranging in size from 10X10 to 20X100 feet, went float- 

 ing by (HWB, JHS). On them huddled a strange company of water moccasins, 

 nutria, rails, and gallinules — sometimes as many as 20 birds to a raft. Occa- 

 sionally as the great rollers surged forward, the mats of vegetation would buckle 



