27 



RAIL. 



RALLUS VIRGINUmiS. 

 [Plate XLVIII.— Fig. 1.] 



Soreef Catesb. I, 70. — Avct. Zool. p. 491, JV'o. 409. — Little Amencan Water Hen, Edw. 144. — Le 



Rale de Virginief Buff. Yin> 165. 



OF all our land or water fowl perhaps none afford the sports- 

 man more agreeable amusement^ or a more delicious repast, than 

 the little bird now before us. This amusement is indeed tempo- 

 rary, lasting only two or three hours in the day for four or five 

 weeks in each year; but as it occurs in the most agreeable and 

 temperate of our seasons, is attended with little or no fatigue to 

 the gunner, and is frequently successful, it attracts numerous fol- 

 lowers, and is pursued, in such places as the birds frequent, with 

 great eagerness and enthusiasm. 



The natural history of the Haily or as it is called in Virginia 

 the Sora, and in South Carolina the Cooty is to the most of our 

 sportsmen involved in profound and inexplicable mystery. It 

 comes, they know not whence ; and goes, they know not where. 

 No one can detect their first moment of arrival; yet all at once 

 the reedy shores and grassy marshes of our large rivers swarm 

 with them, thousands being sometimes found within the space of 

 a few acres. These, when they do venture on wing, seem to fly 

 so feebly, and in such short fluttering flights among the reeds, as 

 to render it highly improbable to most people that they could pos- 

 sibly make their way over an extensive tract of country. Yet, on 

 the first smart frost that occurs, the whole suddenly disappear as 

 if they had never been. 



