THE GREAT RED -BREASTED RAIL. 
161 
following memorandum respecting it : — “ It is an excessively shy bird, runs 
with great celerity, and when caught, cries like a common fowl.” It 
weighed eleven ounces avoirdupois ; its total length was 20i inches, and its 
alar extent 22. 
This species constantly resides in the fresh-water marshes and ponds in 
the interior of South Carolina, Georgia, the Floridas, and Louisiana, from 
which a few migrate, and probably breed as far to the eastward as the wet 
meadows of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, in the vicinity of which I 
killed one female, in New Jersey, a few miles from Camden, in July, 1832, 
in company with my friends Edward Harris and Mr. Ogden, of that city. 
On inquiring of numerous hunters, I was told by several of them that they 
now and then obtained a few of these birds, which they considered as very 
rare, and knew only by the name of “ King Rails.” On recently examining 
the museums of our eastern cities, my friend John Bachman saw only one 
specimen ; and Mr. William Cooper of New York assured him that he had 
never seen any other individuals than those sent to him from Charleston. 
Mr. Bachman was present at the killing of a specimen near Philadelphia, 
which was considered as a very old individual of the Rallus crepitans. In 
Louisiana, the Creoles know this bird by the name of Grand Rule de 
Prairie. 
As the Fresh-Water Marsh-hen is abundant in South Carolina, I shall 
attempt to describe its habits as observed in that State, both by myself and 
by my friend John Bachman, of whose notes, delivered to me for the 
purpose, I shall make free use. “ Although not nearly so numerous as the 
other species, they are not rare in that country, in certain favourable situa- 
tions. Wherever there are extensive marshes by the sides of sluggish 
streams, where the be! lo wings of the alligator are heard at intervals, and the 
pipings of myriads of frogs fill the air, there is found the Fresh-water Marsh- 
hen, and there it may be seen gliding swiftly among the tangled rank 
grasses and aquatic weeds, or standing on the broad leaves of the yellow 
cyamus and fragrant water-lily, or forcing its way through the dense 
foliage of pontederice and sagittarice. There, during the sickly season, it 
remains secure from the search of man, and there, on some hillock or little 
island of the marsh, it builds its nest. In such places I have found so many 
as twenty pairs breeding within a space having a diameter of thirty yards. 
The nests were placed on the ground, and* raised to the height of, six or 
eight inches by means of withered weeds and grasses. The number of eggs 
was nine or ten. About the middle of March I found a few nests contain- 
ing two or three eggs each ; but, in my opinion, the greater number of these 
birds commence breeding about the middle of April. They appear to repair 
