14 
VIRGINIAN RAIL. 
This bird is known to some of the inhabitants along the sea-* 
coast of New Jersey, by the name of the fresh- water mud hen, 
this last being the common appellation of the clapper rail, 
which the present species resembles in every thing but size. 
The epithet fresh-water is given it, because of its frequenting 
those parts of the marsh only where fresh water springs rise 
through the bogs into the salt marshes. In these places it 
usually constructs its nest, one of which, through the active 
exertions of my friend, Mr Ord, while traversing with me the 
salt marshes of Cape May, we had the good fortune to dis- 
cover. It was built in the bottom of a tuft of grass, in the 
midst of an almost impenetrable quagmire, and was composed 
altogether of old wet grass and rushes. The eggs had been 
floated out of the nest by the extraordinary rise of the tide in 
a violent north-east storm, and lay scattered about among the 
drift weed. The female, however, still lingered near the spot, 
to which she was so attached, as to sulfer herself to be taken by 
hand. She doubtless intended to repair her nest, and commence 
laying anew ; as, during the few hours that she was in our pos- 
session, she laid one egg, corresponding in all respects with 
the others. On examining those floated out of the nest, they 
contained young, perfectly formed, but dead. The usual num- 
ber of eggs is from six to ten. They are shaped like those of 
the domestic hen, measuring one inch and two-tenths long, by 
very nearly half an inch in width, and are of a dirty white, or 
pale cream colour, sprinkled with specks of reddish and pale 
purple, most numerous near the great end. They commence 
laying early in May, and probably raise two brood in the sea- 
son. I suspect this from the circumstance of Mr Ord having, 
late in the month of July, brought me several young ones of 
only a few days old, which were caught among the grass near 
the border of the Delaware. The parent rail showed great 
solicitude for their safety. They were wholly black, except a 
white spot on the bill ; were covered with a fine down, and had 
a soft piping note. In the month of June of the same year, 
another pair of these birds began to breed amidst a boggy spring 
