SPECIES 2. PALLUS VIRGINMNUS 
VIRGINIAN RAIL, 
[Plate LXIL— Fig. 1.] 
Jj-Ct. Zool. wYo. 408 . — Edw. £79. — Lath. Syn. v. 3, p. 228, JS'o. 
1, var. A. — Peale’s Museum, JVo. 4426. 
This species very much resembles the European Water Rail, 
{Rallus aquatims) but is smaller, and has none of the slate or 
lead colour on the breast, which marks that of the old continent; 
its toes are also more than proportionably shorter, which, with 
a few other peculiarities, distinguish 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 re-' 
gions. It is frequently seen along the borders of our salt marsh- 
es, 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 com- 
mon Rail. During the months of September and October, when 
the reeds and wild oats swarm with the latter species, feeding 
on their nutricious seeds, a few of the present kind are occasion- 
ally found; but not one for five hundred of the others. The food 
of the present species consists of small snail shells, worms, and 
the larvm 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 inferi- 
or to that of the other. In most of its habits, its thin compress- 
ed form of body, its aversion to take wing, and the dexterity 
with which it runs or conceals itself among the grass and sedge. 
