112 



CLAPPER RAIL. 

 RALLUS CREPITANS. 

 [Plate LXIL— Fig. 2.] 



Arct. Zool. J\'o. 407 — Turt. Syst. j). 430. — Lath. Syn. v. 3, p. 229, J\'*o. 2 -Pi:ale's Museum, 



JVo. 4400. 



THIS is a very numerous and well known species, inhabiting 

 our whole Atlantic coast from New England to Florida. It is de- 

 signated by different names, such as the Mud Hen, Clapper Rail, 

 Meadow Clapper, Big Rail, &c. &c. Tho occasionally found along 

 the swampy shores and tide waters of our large rivers, its princi- 

 pal residence is in the salt marshes. It is a bird of passage, ar- 

 riving on the coast of New Jersey about the twentieth of April, and 

 retiring again late in September. I suspect that many of them 

 winter in the marshes of Georgia and Florida, having heard them 

 very numerous at the mouth of Savannah river, in the month of 

 February. Coasters and fishermen often hear them while on their 

 migrations, in spring, generally a little before day break. The 

 shores of New Jersey, wdthin the beach, consisting of an immense 

 extent of flat marsh, covered with a coarse reedy grass, and occa- 

 sionally overflowed by the sea, by which it is also cut up into in- 

 numerable islands by narrow inlets, seem to be the favorite breed- 

 ing place for these birds, as they are there acknowledged to be 

 more than double in number to all other marsh fowl. 



The Clapper Rail, or, as it is generally called, the Mud Hen, 

 soon announces its arrival in the salt marshes, by its loud, harsh 

 and incessant cackling, which very much resembles that of a 

 Guinea fowl. This noise is most general during the night; and is 

 said to be always greatest before a storm. About the twentieth 



