16 
CLAPPER RAIL. 
CLAPPER RAIL — RALLUS CREPITANS — Plate LXIL Fig. 2. 
Arct, Zool. No. 407. — Lath. Syn. iii. p. 229, No. 2. — Ind. Orn. p. 766, No. 
2 . — Pealds Museum,, No. 4400. 
BALL US CREPITANS.— Gmelin. 
RaUus crepitans, JBonap. Synop. p. 333. 
This is a very numerous and well known species, inhabiting 
our whole Atlantic coast from New England to Florida. It 
is designated by different names, such as the mud hen, clapper 
rail, meadow clapper, big rail, &c, &c. Though occasionally 
found along the swampy shores and tide waters of our large 
rivers, its principal residence is in the salt marshes. It is a 
bird of passage, arriving on the Coast of New Jersey about the 
20th of April, and retiring again late in September. I suspect 
that many of them winter in the marshes of Georgia and Flo- 
rida, having heard them very numerous at the mouth of Savan* 
nail river in the month of February. Coasters and fishermen 
often hear them while on their migrations, in spring, generally 
a little before daybreak. The shores of New Jersey, within 
the beach, consisting of an immense extent of flat marsh, 
covered with a coarse reedy grass, and occasionally overflowed 
by the sea, by which it is also cut up into innumerable islands 
by narrow inlets, seem to be the favourite breeding place for 
these birds, as they are there acknowledged to be more than 
double in number to all other marsh fowl. 
The clapper rail, or, as it is generally called, the mud hen, 
soon announces its arrival in the salt marshes, by its loud, harsh, 
and incessant cackling, which very much resembles that of a 
Guinea fowl. This noise is most general during the night, 
and is said to be always greatest before a storm. About the 
20th of May, they generally commence laying and building at 
the same time ; the first egg being usually dropt in a slight 
