34 



RAIL. 



ly jetting up the tail. Yet, tho their flight among the reeds seems 

 feeble and fluttering, every sportsman who is acquainted with them 

 here, must have seen them occasionally rising to a considerable 

 height, stretching out their legs behind them, and flying rapidly 

 across the river where it is more than a mile in width. 



Such is the mode of Rail-shooting in the neighbourhood of 

 Philadelphia. In Virginia, particularly along the shores of James 

 river within the tide water, where the Rail, or Sora, are in prodi- 

 gious numbers, they are also shot on the wing, but more usually 

 taken at night in the following manner. A kind of iron grate is 

 fixed on the top of a stout pole, which is placed like a mast, in a 

 light canoe, and filled with fire. The darker the night the more 

 successful is the sport. The person who manages the canoe is pro- 

 vided with a light paddle ten or twelve feet in length; and about 

 an hour before high water proceeds through among the reeds which 

 lie broken and floating on the surface. The whole space for a 

 considerable way round the canoe is completely enlightened; the 

 birds stare with astonishment, and as they appear are knocked on 

 the head with the paddle, and thrown into the canoe. In this man- 

 ner from twenty to eighty dozen have been killed by three negroes 

 in the short space of three hours I 



At the same season, or a little earlier, they are very numerous 

 in the lagoons near Detroit on our northern frontiers, where ano- 

 ther species of reed (of which they are equally fond) grows in shal- 

 lows in great abundance. Gentlemen who have shot them there, 

 and on whose judgment I can rely, assure me, that they differ in 

 nothing from those they have usually killed on the shores of the 

 Delaware and Schuylkill; they are equally fat, and exquisite eat- 

 ing. On the sea coast of New Jersey, where these reeds are not to 

 be found, this bird is altogether unknown; tho along the marshes 

 of Maurice river and other tributary streams of the Delaware, and 

 wherever the reeds abound, the Rail are sure to be found also. 

 Most of them leave Pennsylvania before the end of October, and 



