UPLAND SHOOTING. 
283 
almost constantly jetting up the tail, yet though their flight 
among the reeds seem feeble and fluttering, every sportsman 
who is acquainted with them here, must have seen them occa¬ 
sionally rising to a considerable height, stretching out their legs 
behind them, and flying rapidly across the river, where it is 
more than a mile in width. Such is the mode of Rail shooting 
in the neighborhood of Phil adelphia. 
“ In Virginia, particularly along the shores of James River, 
within the tide water, where the Rail, or Sora, are in prodigious 
numbers, they are also shot on the wing, but more usually taken 
at night in the following manner:— 
“ A kind of iron grate is fixed on the top of a stout pole, which 
is placed like a mast in a light canoe, and filled with fire. The 
darker the night, the more successful is the sport. The person 
who manages the canoe, is provided with a light paddle, ten or 
twelve feet in length ; and about an hour before high water, pro¬ 
ceeds through among the reeds, which lie broken and floating on 
the surface. The whole space, for a considerable way round 
the canoe, is completely enlightened,—the birds start with as¬ 
tonishment, and, as they appear, are knocked over the head with 
a paddle, and thrown into the canoe. In this manner, from 
twenty to eighty dozen have been killed by three negroes in the 
short space of three hours. 
“ At the same season, or a little earlier, they are very nume¬ 
rous in the lagoons near Detroit, on our northern frontier, 
where another species of reed, of which they are equally fond, 
grows in shallows in great abundance. Gentlemen who have 
shot them there, and on whose judgment I can rely, assure me 
that they differ in nothing from those they have usually killed 
on the shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill; they are equally 
fat and exquisite eating. 
“ On the seacoast of New-Jersey, where these are not to be 
found, this bird is altogether unknown, though along the 
marshes of Maurice River, and other tributary streams of the 
Delaware,.and where the reeds abound, the Rail are sure to be 
found also. Most of them leave Pennsylvania before the end of 
