FAMILY XXL 
MACRODACTYLl , Illiger. 
GENUS LIV — BALL US, Linnjsus. 
SUBGENUS I. — BALLUS, ILLIGER. 
236. BALL US CREPITANS , LINNAEUS AND WILSON. 
CLAPPER RAIL. 
WILSON, PLATE LXII. FIG. II. 
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. 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 Florida, having heard them very numerous at the 
mouth of Savannah river in the month of February. 
Coasters and fishermen often hear them while on their 
migrations, in spring, generally a little before day- 
break. 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 
