SPECIES 3. RALLUS CAROLINUS. 
RAIL. 
[Plate XL VIII.— Fig. 1. M?/e.] 
Soree, Catesb. i, 70. — j^rct. Zool. p. 491, Little Ame- 
rican Water Hen, Ewd. 144. — Le Rdl de Virginie, Buff, vin, 
165.* 
Of all our land or water fowl, perhaps none afford the sports- 
man more agreeable amusement, or a more delicious repast, than 
the little bird now before us. This amusement is indeed tem- 
porary, lasting only two or three hours in the day, for four or 
five weeks in each year; but as it occurs in the most agreeable 
and temperate of our seasons, is attended with little or no fa- 
tigue to the gunner, and is frequently successful, it attracts nu- 
merous followers, and is pursued, in such places as the birds 
frequent, with great eagerness and enthusiasm. 
The natural history of the Rail, or as it is called in Virginia 
the So7'a, and in South Carolina the Coot, is, to the most of our 
sportsmen, involved in profound and inexplicable mystery. It 
comes, they know not whence; and goes, they know not whither. 
No one can detect their first moment of arrival; yet all at once 
the reedy shores, and grassy marshes, of our large rivers swarm 
with them, thousands being sometimes found within the space 
of a few acres. These, when they do venture on wing, seem 
to fly so feebly, and in such short fluttering flights among the 
the reeds, as to render it highly improbable, to most people, 
that they could possibly make their way over an extensive tract 
of country. Yet, on the first smart frost that occurs, the whole 
suddenly disappear, as if they had never been. 
* Rallus Carolinus, Lin. Syst. p. 153, M. 5, ed. 10. — Gallinula Carolina, 
Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 771, JVo. 17. 
VOL. III. B b 
