GENUS 78. RALLUS. RAIL, 
SPECIES 1. R. CREPITANS. 
CLAPPER RAIL. 
[Plate LXIL— Fig. 2.] 
Jlrct. Zool. No. 407. — Turt. Syst. 4S0.“Lath. Syn. v. 3, jo. 
229, No. 2. — Peale’s Museum, No. 4400. 
This is a very numerous and well known species, inhabiting 
our whole Atlantic coast from New England to Florida. It is 
designated by different names, such as the Mud-hen, Clapper 
Rail, Meadow-clapper, Big Rail, &c. &c. Though occasionally 
found along the swampy shores, and tide waters, of our large 
rivers, its principal residence is in the salt marshes. It is a bird 
of passage, arriving on the coast of New Jersey about the twen- 
tieth of April, and retiring again late in September. I suspect 
that many of them winter in the marshes of Georgia and Flori- 
da, having heard them very numerous, at the mouth of Savan- 
nah river, in the month of February. Coasters and fishermen 
often hear them while on their migrations, in spring, generally 
a little before daybreak. The shores of New Jersey, within the 
beach, consisting of an immense extent of flat marsh, covered 
with a coarse reedy grass, and occasionally overflowed by the 
sea, by which it is also cut up into innumerable islands by nar- 
row inlets, seem to be the favourite breeding 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 twenti- 
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