RAIL. 
235 
writer, “is in low swampy grounds, in which are pools or 
streamlets overgrown with willows, reeds, and rushes, where 
it lurks and hides itself with great circumspection ; it is wild, 
solitary, and shy, and will swim, dive, or skulk under any 
cover, and sometimes suffer itself to be knocked on the head, 
rather than rise before the sportsman and his dog.” The Water 
Rail of the same country is equally noted for the like habits. 
In short, the whole genus possess this strong family character 
in a very remarkable degree. 
These three species are well known to migrate into Britain 
early in spring, and to leave it for the more southern parts of 
Europe in autumn. Yet they are rarely or never seen on 
their passage to or from the countries where they are regularly 
found at different seasons of the year, and this for the very 
same reasons that they are so rarely seen even in the places 
where they inhabit. 
It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that the regular migra- 
tions of the American Rail, or Sora, should in like manner have 
escaped notice in a country like this, whose population bears 
so small a proportion to its extent, and where the study of 
natural history is so little attended to. But that these migra- 
tions do actually take place, from north to south, and vice versa , 
may be fairly inferred from the common practice of thousands 
of other species of birds less solicitous of concealment, and 
also from the following facts : 
On the 22d day of February, I killed two of these birds in 
the neighbourhood of Savannah, in Georgia, where they have 
never been observed during the summer. On the 2d of the 
May following, I shot another in a watery thicket below 
Philadelphia, between the rivers Schuylkill and Delaware, in 
what is usually called the Neck. This last was a male, in 
full plumage. We are also informed, that they arrive at 
Hudson’s Bay early in June, and again leave that settlement 
for the south early in autumn. That many of them also 
remain here to breed is proven by the testimony of persons of 
credit and intelligence with whom I have conversed, both 
