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THE VIRGINIAN RAIL 
Rallus virginianus, Linn. 
PLATE CCCXI. — Male, Female, and Yoting. 
This species, which, although smaller* bears a great resemblance to the 
Great Red-breasted Rail or Fresh-water Marsh-hen, is met with in most 
parts of the United States at different seasons. Many spend the winter 
within our southern limits, and I have found them at that time in Lower 
Louisiana, the Floridas, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In the western country 
some have been known to remain until severe frost came on, and there they 
usually stay to a much later period than in our Middle Districts, from 
which they generally retire southward in the beginning of October. During 
spring and summer, I observed some in different places from the shores of 
the Wabash river in Illinois, to those of the St. John’s in the British pro- 
vince of New Brunswick. In the latter district, they were considered 
extremely rare birds by the inhabitants, some of whom brought me a few as 
great curiosities. Farther north, I neither saw nor heard of any ; but on 
the borders of Lakes Erie and Michigan, they breed in considerable num- 
bers, as well as near our maritime districts. 
In its habits the Rallus virginianus is intermediate between the R. 
crepitans and Ortygometra carolinus : it obtains its food as well in salt- 
water marshes as in fresh meadows, watery savannahs, and the borders of 
ponds and rivers. The latter situations, however, seem to suit it best during 
summer ; but whenever both kinds of places are combined, or near each 
other, there you are sure to meet with it. 
The time of breeding varies according to the latitude of the place. I have 
found the female sitting on her eggs in the beginning of March, a few miles 
from New Orleans ; in Kentucky, near Henderson, in April ; about a fort- 
night later near Vincennes, in Illinois ; and from the 10th of May to the 
middle of June, in the Middle and Eastern States. The males usually arrive 
at the breeding-places a week or ten days before the females. They travel 
silently and by night, as I have ascertained by observing them proceed 
singly and in a direct course, at a height of only a few feet, over our broad 
rivers, or over level land, when their speed is such as is never manifested 
by them under ordinary circumstances. Their movements can be easily 
traced for fifty yards or so during nights of brilliant moonshine, when you 
