VIRGINIAN RAIL. 
109 
the border of the Delaware. The parent rail shewed 
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 in one 
of Mr Bartram’s meadows, but were unfortunately 
destroyed. 
The Virginian rail is migratory, never wintering 
in the Northern or Middle States. It makes its first 
appearance in Pennsylvania early in May, and leaves 
the country on the first smart frosts, generally in 
November. I have no doubt but many of them linger 
in the low woods and marshes of the Southern States 
during winter. 
This species is ten inches long, and fourteen inches 
in extent; bill, dusky red; cheeks and stripe over the 
eye, ash, over the lores and at the lower eyelid, white; 
iris of the eye, red ; crown and whole upper parts, 
black, streaked with brown, the centre of each feather 
being black; wing-coverts, hazel brown, inclining to 
chestnut ; quills, plain deep dusky ; chin, white ; throat, 
breast, and belly, orange brown ; sides and vent, black, 
tipt with white ; legs and feet, dull red brown ; edge 
of the bend of the wing, white. 
The female is about half an inch shorter, and differs 
from the male, in having the breast much paler ; not of 
so bright a reddish brown ; there is also more white on 
the chin and throat. 
When seen, which is very rarely, these birds stand 
or run with the tail erect, which they frequently jerk 
upwards. They fly with the legs hanging/ generally 
but a short distance ; and the moment they alight, run 
off with great speed. 
