WADING BIRDS. 
182 
red and pale purple, most numerous at the great end. In the 
Middle States this bird is believed to raise two broods in the 
season. The female is so much attached to her eggs, after 
sitting, as sometimes to allow of being taken up by the hand 
rather than desert the premises, — which affection appears the 
more necessary as the male seems to deserts his mate and leave 
her in the sole charge of her little family. 
About the i8th of June, in this vicinity, in a wet part of the 
salt-marsh making into a fresh meadow near Charles River, 
one moonlight evening as late as nine o’clock I heard a busy 
male of this species calling out at short intervals in a guttural, 
creaking tone, almost like the sound of a watchman’s rattle, 
’kut-d-ci'it tee-ah, — the call sometimes a little varied. At this 
time, no doubt, his mate was somewhere sitting on her eggs in 
some tuft of the tall marine grass {Spardna glabra) which 
overhung the muddy inlet near which he took his station. 
The young, for some time after being hatched, are covered 
wholly with a jet-black down, and running with agility, are 
now sometimes seen near the deep marshes, straying into the 
uplands and drier places, following the careful mother much in 
the manner of a hen with her brood of chickens. When sepa- 
rated from the parent at a more advanced age, their slender 
peep, peep, peep, is heard and soon answered by the attentive 
parent. The female when startled in her watery retreat often 
utters a sharp, squeaking scream apparently close at hand, 
which sounds like 'keek, 'keek, 'kek ; on once approaching, as 
I thought, the author of this discordant and timorous cry, it 
still slowly receded, but always appeared within a few feet of 
me, and at length pressing the pursuit pretty closely, she rose 
for a little distance with hanging legs, and settled down into a 
ditch among some pond-lily leaves, over which she darted and 
again disappeared in her paths through the tall sedge, scream- 
ing at intervals, as I now found, to give warning to a brood 
of young which had at first probably accompanied her and 
impeded her progress. 
When seen, which is but rarely, the Virginian Rail, like the 
other species, stands or runs with the neck outstretched and 
