August, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
447 
RAIL BIRDS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I DO not know of any birds on the Paci- 
fic Coast that are becoming extinct so 
fast as the rails. All sorts and condi- 
tions of rails from big to little. They 
are well protected by both Federal and 
State laws but their habits are such that 
the laws do not seem to save them. They 
skulk in the grass and weeds at low 
water, but when flood time comes, it 
di’ives them from this shelter; they flush 
easily and the general run of shooters 
feel like taking a pop at one, law or no 
law, then when the bird drops, the shoot- 
er often has lost his enthusiasm and does 
not stop to pick it up, or if he stops it 
is only to throw the rail into the weeds 
a bit further out of sight, else where the 
tide is running rapidly that it may drift 
the faster towards open water where the 
gulls will see to it that no telltale evi- 
dence is left. 
Going along the shore to my duck blind 
I have often warned shooters, mostly 
Italians and Japs, who, it was self evi- 
dent, had not paid the twenty-five dollars 
required for an alien license. “Do you 
know you are violating the law killing 
those rails and shore birds?” I would 
ask them, for the small sandpipers or 
even a killdeer sitting on her eggs are not 
safe from that kind of a gunner. “You 
game man? Show your badge,” they 
would reply, and when I could not I am 
told with a threatening motion of the 
alien’s gun, “You better git or I fix you,” 
and there is nothing to do but to “git” 
for the law-breaker will shoot, as some 
of the game deputies have found out to 
their cost. 
The state is helpless, there are nowhere 
enough deputy wardens to patrol the hun- 
dreds of miles of bay shore and tulle 
marsh, so the foreigners work their own 
sweet will, helped by half-grown boys 
and irresponsible licensed gunners, on the 
rails and the shore birds. There seems 
no way of checking them and the birds 
are disappearing rapidly. 
Their scarcity was shown by a trip 
made after duck eggs for the State Game 
Farm. The land was an ideal spot, a 
low, flooded pasture, just the spot where 
there would have been plenty of rail in 
game’s more prosperous days. Well, in 
all, the party found eleven nests of ducks, 
containing eighty-three eggs, most of 
which were hatched and all or nearly all 
of the mud-hen chicks reached maturity. 
Great fighters they were too, afraid of 
nothing and as ready to tackle a big 
Canada goose, as a bird of their own size. 
We also found the grass-woven nest of 
a lone pair of sora rail — there should 
have been thirty nests — holding fourteen 
eggs. 
The rail eggs were placed in an incu- 
bator with a big batch of quail eggs and 
while a large portion hatched, the chicks 
were feeble and began to die before the 
shell was off their backs. 
The bantam hen to whom they were 
given did her best, but that was not good 
enough. They answered to her cluck, 
hunted for worms when she scratched 
and adopted her for their mother, but 
something was wrong, for on the second 
day only five remained alive. These 
were active and seemed to be gaining in 
strength. The writer was fortunate in 
being on hand to take a snap-shot of the 
bunch. The movie-man also was tele- 
phoned to hurry that he might take a 
picture the like of which he would never 
have a chance to get again. He did 
hurry but arrived too late. The baby 
rail were all dead. They dropped off as 
suddenly as an old man might with heart 
disease, and were dead before anyone 
knew they were sick. A like thing hap- 
pened later to a hatching of red-head 
ducks. There were ten in all and they 
acted as lively as if following their nat- 
ural mother through the marsh. 
Morning saw them healthy and strong, 
eating their rations with a good appetite. 
Before night every one was dead and to 
this day no one knows what killed them; 
something missing, perhaps, from their 
bill of fare that they needed or too much 
of something else that was harmful. 
Anyway theiy died, which was discourag- 
ing to those who by artificial hatching 
are experimenting with home-raising of 
wild game. 
On the other hand a farmer, when out 
Sora rail chicks 
on the marsh, tip-winged a canvas back, 
caught her, brought her home and turned 
her loose in the poultry yard where she 
made herself as much at home as if 
hatched and raised there. She soon 
learned to follow the example of the hens 
and scratch for worms, which she did 
until her feet became calloused. 
The losing out of the rail deprives us 
of what should have been a much appre- 
ciated game bird, one which when prop- 
erly prepared for the table is as good as 
the best. King rails compare favorably 
with prairie chickens. Some prefer the 
sora to jack-snipe. 
Some years ago at a certain hunting 
resort the king rails were often broiled 
with bacon and served at the same meal 
as prairie chickens; they were eaten 
while the chickens went begging for pat- 
ronage as long as any of the rail re- 
mained. The sora also, if cooked right, 
passed, except as to shape, for jacksnipe, 
only perhaps a little more tender, and 
for one I am sorry, very sorry, that they 
are joining so rapidly the ranks of things 
that once were. 
The alien shooters will sneak one over 
on the law when they can, some because 
they don’t know better, others because 
they don’t care. The Fish and Game 
Commission is aware of the fact but 
powerless to prevent it. Game wardens 
are doing their best to enforce the law; 
the state for years has been trying to 
educate the people, but many of them 
won’t stand for being educated when edu- 
cation interferes with what they term 
“sport”. These care nothing about game 
being on the decrease, about the danger 
of rail and shore-birds becoming extinct. 
It is questionable even if such drastic 
laws for protection as have recently been 
passed in Minnesota and North Dakota 
to save the grouse would help the rail 
much. Certainly “no open season” is not 
helping the rail on the Pacific Coast or 
the shore-birds either. Perhaps to do 
away with all fines and to have the pun- 
ishment a jail sentence only would help. 
It might be tried, for nothing can be 
worse than the present situation. 
E. T. Martin, California. 
SACO RIVER CANOE TRIP 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
I read the letter by Ernest F. Brown 
on “Canoeing on the Saco River” in 
the May issue of Forest and Stream. 
It was a very interesting description, but 
I think he made a few mistakes on the 
distances. The way he reckons it, it 
would be only fifteen miles from Swan’s 
Falls to Lowells Pond; but everyone 
around here calls it twenty-eight miles. 
One year ago last March, after the 
river was clear of ice, my brother Clifford, 
another boy and myself took the trip 
which they call “going around river,” that 
is, going from Swan’s Falls to Lowells 
Pond, which is as I said before twenty- 
eight miles. The river was quite high 
and swift. We did not start until the 
middle of the afternoon and we paddled 
into the lower end of Lowells Pond just 
three hours from the time we left Swan’s 
Falls. Two of us paddled all the way 
and we carried around the rapids by the 
covered bridge below Pleasant Pond. The 
ice had not gone out of the pond and we 
had to leave our canoe in the woods at 
the foot of the pond, and walk home, 
which was about three and one-half miles. 
A great many people take this trip in 
the summer, but they usually make a two 
days’ trip of it. It is an excellent trip to 
take, as there is only one set of rapids 
to go around and it affords beautiful 
scenery. The river goes around two 
mountains and by paddling up the outlet 
of the pond and the length of the pond 
you come back to within two and one-half 
miles of your starting point. 
Harold F. Eastman, Fryeburg, Maine. 
WIRE BIRD NESTS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I NOTICED that my house wrens did not 
build in one of their old houses this year 
but built in a new one. I saw them work- 
ing around the old house and thought 
everything all right. That was three 
weeks ago. One evening this week I took 
a step-ladder and took a look at the old 
house. The hole or entrance was complete- 
ly closed with old twigs and wire, evident- 
ly they had tried to clean house but 
failed. Then I tried it. I took a strong 
wire and made a hook on the end and 
went at it, but I had to give it up. 
