CAROLINA RAIL. 
117 
Jjj top of a stout pole, which is placed like a mast, 
ogkt canoe, and filled with fire. The darker the 
t the more successful is the sport. The person 
ten* *''®oages the canoe is provided with a light paddle 
twelve feet in length, and, about an hour before 
li^ I ""^ter, proceeds through among the reeds, which 
Sp “*'oken and floating on the surface. The whole 
Pkt ^ ^ considerable way round the canoe is com- 
enlightened; the birds stare with astonishment, 
appear, are knocked on the head with the 
tfom *’ thrown into the canoe. In this manner 
^”'®nty to eighty dozen have been killed by three 
\ in the short space of three hours ! 
same season, or a little earlier, they are very 
ff ^^ous in the lagoons near Detroit on our northern 
where another species of reed (of which they 
Qg ^'i^ally fond) grows in shallows in great abundance, 
jufi ^ ****00 who have shot them there, and on whose 
I can rely, assure me, that they difler in 
sligg S from those they have usually killed on the 
fat ®f the Delaware and Schuylkill ; they are equally 
Jers*''*^ exquisite eating. On the sea coast of New 
is „.gy> where these reeds are not to be found, this bird 
?&ethcr unknown ; though along the marshes of 
river, and other tributary streams of the Dela- 
to j,’ ®'®d, wherever the reeds abound, the rail arc snre 
befg® ^eund also. Most of them leave Pennsylvania 
eapi ® the end of October, and the Southern States 
Som?*® li^ovemher, though numbers linger in the warm 
marshes the whole winter. A very worthy 
a cr Mr Harrison, who lives in Kittiwan, near 
'Ofov that name, on the borders of James River, 
^*Pch * *'*’“**■ burning his meadows early in 
^ey generally raise and destroy several of these 
eOtt„l . ^hat the great body of these rail winter in 
Pro], r*ee beyond the United States, is rendered highly 
'etwfl trom their being so frequently met with at sea, 
Capj„-®® shores and the West India islands. A 
Sl'js ’*P.Uouglas informed me, that on his voyage from 
emingo to Philadelphia, and more than a hundred 
