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Virginia Rail. These birds will always run in preference to 
flying, and keep themselves carefully hid in the reeds, so that 
they are not often seen unless specially sought for. Both kinds 
breed here, but they are more abundant about the first of Septem¬ 
ber when their numbers are increased by the return of those 
which have passed the breeding season farther north. They are 
sensitive to cold, and usually, on the occurrence of any severe 
weather, all disappear. This disappearance is so very sudden,— 
sometimes not a single Rail being found after a severe frost in 
places which the day before were swarming with them,—that 
some startling theories have been advanced to account for it, 
one of which is that the Rail buries itself in the mud and remains 
torpid until the following spring, the other, that they turn into 
frogs. It is hardly necessary to refute these statements, and it is 
known that these birds regularly migrate and have been met with 
by ships at a distance of several hundred miles from land. By 
the end of October the greater part of them have left Newport, 
though I have seen one as late as the second of November. 
I must pass over many interesting birds, merely mentioning the 
names of the King Bird, Night-hawk and Baltimore Oriole, all of 
which breed here, and now come to the shore birds of which 
there are very many varieties. We have two kinds of “Peep” 
which are very abundant, the Least or Wilson’s Sandpiper and 
the Semipalmated Sandpiper ; their general appearance is much 
the same, but the latter is distinguished by having the toes semi¬ 
palmated or half webbed. Then, there is the Pectoral Sandpiper, 
always known as the Creaker, from its peculiar cries, a bird which is 
found on the salt marshes, and rarely if ever on the beaches. The 
Sanderling Sandpiper, on the other hand, frequents the beaches 
rather than the marsh, and may be often met with on the Second 
beach. It differs from the other Sandpipers in having no hind 
toe, in which respect it is like the Plovers. The largest of our 
Sandpipers is the Red-breasted Sandpiper or Robin Snipe which 
is a somewhat rare species and is identical with the European bird 
called the Knot. Belonging to a sub-family by themselves are 
the Willet, a comparatively rare species here, the well-known 
Yellow-leg, and the Great Yellow-leg. Of the Plovers, we have 
the Golden Plover or Greenhead and the Black-bellied Plover 
usually, I believe, called Black-breast or Beetle-head. The little 
