_ Mm. V*O v 4 f <f»«l 
Regarding the Yellow Rails, we saw them right on the hWiTT 
broad meadows. TAey were not among the sedges at all but in the 
grass perhaps a little taller than the ordinary meadow grass. I 
think they act quite differently from the Va. and Gar. They flush 
very much more easily but they do not take any longer flights than 
the others. They start up differently than the other Rails. 
Besides the 3 T sent you, T killed the 4th. which T shot to pieces. 
Charlie Paine killed one. A friend of mine that I had up there 
with me undoubtedly shot at another which he did not get. The 
instant they flush up you can tell them, the white shows so dis- 
tinctly. 
Yours truly, 
M. Abbott Prazar.| (jE+.f®***' 
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Mat 
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208 General Notes. 
r Auk 
l_Apr. 
P° rza n - a - noveboracensis. Ten years ago, in a certain piece of wet 
meadow land near Springfield, I captured a Yellow Rail. This was the 
first and only one that to my knowledge had been observed in this part of 
the State. One day in the autumn of 1901, at the same place, I found four 
of this species, and there, later that season and each of the three following 
autumns, I found others. So little has been known, or at least written, 
about the Yellow Rail, that I took particular pains to observe them. The 
place where they were found was wet meadow land covered with wild 
grass, which in October stood, in places where it had not been harvested, 
to the height of two or three feet and harbored many Virginia Rails and 
Soias. The grass upon the other part-of the land was cut in the summer, 
and by the middle of October the second growth reached the height of 
seven or eight inches, and in this portion the Yellow Rails are to be 
found, they apparently not desiring so thick a cover as do the common 
kinds. When the bird is in the air the white spots on the wings make 
the identification an easy matter. Its flight is much like that of the Sora, 
although it is apt to rise higher. On alighting it usually immediately 
secretes itself, but not always, as I have seen it on such occasions run with 
gi eat lapiditv. I have flushed all by the aid of a dog, except one, and 
that rose about twenty feet ahead of me, evidently frightened by my 
approach. The earliest date in any autumn that I have found them was 
the 17th of September, and I think that the latest was the 22d of October. 
In this part of the Connecticut Valley I have been in many meadows of 
the same character as the one in question, accompanied by a dog educated 
in such a way that the scent given out by any kind of rail would so 
attract his attention that he would be likely to make known the presence 
of such a bird, if any were there, but in these places I have never found a 
Yellow Rail, and it seems worthy of note that this species should be a 
regular autumn visitor to a certain piece of meadow land, containing per- 
haps three acres, and to be found nowhere else in this vicinity at any 
time. — Robert O. Morris, S-prifigfield, Mass. o 
Attk. XXII, Apr. , 1903, p . 
