UPLAND SHOOTING. 
279 
swim, dive and skulk under any cover, and sometimes suffer 
itself to be knocked on the head, rather than rise before the 
sportsman and his dog. The Water Rail of the same country 
is noted for the like habits. In short, the whole genus possess 
this strange family character in a very remarkable degree. 
“ These three species are well known to migrate into Britain 
early in the spring, and to leave it for the more southern parts 
of Europe in autumn. Yet they are rarely or never seen in 
their passage to or from the countries, where they are regularly 
found at different seasons of the year, and this for the very 
same reasons, that they are so rarely seen even in the places 
they inhabit. It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that the re¬ 
gular migrations of the American Rail, or Sora, should in like 
manner have escaped notice in a country like this, whose popu¬ 
lation bears so small a proportion to its extent, and where the 
study of natural history is so little attended to. But that these 
migrations do actually take place, from north to south, and vice 
versa , may be fairly inferred from the common practice of thou 
sands of other species of birds, less solicitous of concealment, 
and also from the following facts :— 
“ On the 22d day of February, I killed two of these birds in 
the neighborhood of Savannah, in Georgia, where they have 
never been observed during the summer. On the second day 
of the May following, I shot another in a watery thicket, below 
Philadelphia, between the rivers Schuylkill and Delaware, in 
what is usually called the Neck. This last was a male in full 
plumage. We are also informed that they arrive at Hudson’s 
Bay early in June, and again leave that settlement for the 
South early in autumn. 
“ That many of them also remain here to breed, is proved by 
the testimony of persons of credit and intelligence, with whom 
I have conversed, both here and on James River, in Virginia, 
who have seen their nests, eggs, and young. In the extensive 
meadows that border the Schuylkill and Delaware, it was for* 
merly common, before the country was so thickly settled, to 
find young Rail in the first mowing time, among the grass 
