PORZAJSA NO VEBORACENS1S. 
431 
in winter from the Carolinas to Key West. They breed in Massachusetts during the last 
week in May or first in June. 
POEZANA NOVEBORACENSIS. 
Yellow Rail. 
Porzana Novcboracensis Cass., Baird’s Birds N. A.; 1858, 750. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Sr. Ch. Form, slender. Size, small. Tongue, wide, thin, and horny, especially at tip which is gradually rounded 
and bifid. Bill, rather slender. 
Color. Adult. Above, and on sides and flanks, dark-brown, with all the feathers, excepting primaries, longitudi¬ 
nally streaked with yellowish and transversely banded with white. Neck, breast, and under tail coverts, reddish-buff. Re¬ 
mainder of under portions, and tips of secondaries, white. Legs, iris, and bill, brown, with the latter yellow at base of 
lower mandible. Young. Similar to the adult but paler below. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
Readily known by the small size, broad white band on secondaries, and colors as described. Distributed, in summer 
from Hudson’s Bay to Massachusetts. Winters in Florida. 
DIMENSIONS. 
Average measurements of specimens from Eastern North America. Length, fi-75; stretch, 12-50; wing, 3-55; tail, 
1'65; bill, ‘55; tarsus, - 80. Longest specimen, 7'25; greatest extent of wing, 13’00; longest wing, 3’80; tail, l'?5; bill, -60; 
tarsus, -85. Shortest specimen, 6-00; smallest extent of wing, 12-00; shortest wing, 3'25; tail, 1-50; bill, -50; tarsus, -75. 
DESCRIPTION OF NESTS AND EGGS. 
Nests, placed on the ground in marshy places, composed of grass, weeds, etc. Eggs, from six to ten in number, oval 
in form, deep buff in color, dotted and spotted irregularly, but very sparcely, with reddish-brown and lilac. Dimensions 
from -85x 1 - 15 to - 80x 1‘05. 
HABITS. 
“September eighth, 1868, walking with a young lad over a squash field on high land, 
but within twenty or thirty rods of a meadow; suddenly I heard the boy who was on the 
lookout for specimens, exclaim, ‘Here’s a Sparrow with white wings!’ ‘Shoot it!’ said I, 
and looking toward him, I saw him beating about among the squash leaves, then raise his 
gun and fire, after which he ran forward, and stooping down, exclaimed, ‘It is a Rail!’ I 
hastened to the spot, took the bird in my hand, and to my surprise and delight, it proved 
to be the rare Yellow Rail, the first that I had ever seen; a female it proved upon dissec¬ 
tion, (No, 1240). This was in the dusk of the evening, and when first started, the bird 
made a squeaking noise, but not loud, for I stood within fifteen rods of the place and did 
not hear it. The secondaries of this specimen are broadly margined with white, a fact not 
noticed by Audubon or Baird; thus this must be peculiar, or these ornithologists would 
have observed it; indeed it gave the bird the appearance of having white wings, in the dusky 
light in which it was shot. I should think that it is a young bird but in perfect plumage. 
The body and head remind one strongly of some of the small foreign Quails.” 
The above is an extract from one of my note books, and four years later, on the twen¬ 
tieth of January, I started a Yellow Rail in one of the partly submerged marshes on the bor¬ 
der of the St. John’s River in Florida, near Blue Spring. This specimen rose some dis¬ 
tance from me and flew quite rapidly, for a Rail, in a straight line for some distance, then 
dropped into the tall grass, from which I could not make it rise again. I easily recognized 
this specimen by the small size and conspicuous white tippings to the primaries, a charac¬ 
ter which I find is constant in all specimens that I have examined, but which appears to 
have been overlooked by most writers on ornithology. In June, 1873, I heard some sin- 
