Species II. RALLUS VIRGINIANUS. 
VIRGINIAN RAIL. 
[Plate LXII. Fig. 1.] 
Arct. Zool. No. 408.— Edw. 279.— Lath. Syn. nr., p. 228, No. l,var. A. 
This species very much resembles the European Water Rail (Rallus 
aquaticus), but is smaller, and has none of the slate or lead color on tbe 
breast, -which marks that of the old continent; its toes are also more 
than proportionably shorter, which, with a few other peculiarities, dis- 
tinguish the species. It is far less numerous in this part of the United 
States than our common Rail, and, as I apprehend, inhabits more 
remote northern regions. It is frequently seen along the borders of our 
salt marshes, which the other rarely visits ; and also breeds there, as 
well as among the meadows that border our large rivers. It spreads 
over the interior as far west as the Ohio, having myself shot it in 
the Barrens of Kentucky, early in May. The people there observe 
them in wet places, in the groves, only in spring. It feeds less on 
vegetable, and more on animal, food than the common Rail. During 
the months of September and October, when the reeds and wild oats 
swarm with the latter species, feeding on their nutritious seeds, a few 
of the present kind are occasionally found ; but not one for five hun- 
dred of the others. The food of the present species consists of small 
snail shells, worms, and the larvae of insects, which it extracts from the 
mud ; hence the cause of its greater length of bill, to enable it the more 
readily to reach its food. On this account also, its flesh is much 
inferior to that of the other. In most of its habits, its thin compressed 
form of body, its aversion to take wing, and the dexterity with which 
it runs or conceals itself among the grass and sedge, are exactly similar 
to those of the common Rail, from which genus, notwithstanding the 
difference of its bill, it ought not to be separated. 
This bird is known to some of the inhabitants along the sea-coast of 
New Jersey, by the name of Fresh-water Mud-hen, this last being the 
common appellation of the Clapper Rail, which the present species re- 
sembles in everything but size. The epithet Fresh-water, is given it 
because of its frequenting those parts of the marsh only, where fresh 
water springs rise through the bogs into the salt marshes. In these 
places it usually constructs its nest, one of which, through the active 
exertions of my friend, Mr. Ord, while traversing with me the salt 
marshes of Cape May, we had the good fortune to discover. It was 
built in the bottom of a tuft of grass, in the midst of an almost impe- 
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