Sept. 15, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
411 
Birds of a City Marsh. 
BY B. S. BOWDISH. 
Greater New York is a wonderful, cosmo¬ 
politan metropolis. Almost all kinds of inhabi¬ 
tants, and all sorts of chattels are to be found in 
the city limits that are known elsewhere. Even 
those to whom the city is a big, dreary prison 
are willing to admit this wonderful variety of 
contents. Yet those who are at all familiar with 
the habits of the shy, retiring marsh birds, would 
hardly expect that in all this heterogenous mass 
of animation and inanimation, the greater city 
could boast a breeding ground of these birds, 
and that not in the outskirts, the suburbs, but 
right in the midst of busy city streets. 
When the writer was invited to investigate 
such conditions in Long Island City, he gladly 
availed himself of the opportunity, and hoped 
to be able to secure some photographs, but he 
fully expected that the marshes would be at the. 
outskirts of the city, in some situation where 
they could secure to their feathered denizens 
something approaching the conditions of life 
they are normally accustomed to. 
It was June 4 when the trip was made. An 
ideal forenoon, and a light wind in the after¬ 
noon as the only drawback, furnished favorable 
conditions for the project. Seven-thirty in the 
morning found the hopeful photographer at the 
home 01 Messrs. W. F. and John H. Hendrick¬ 
son, having crossed by the 34th Street Ferry, 
and reached the house by a short ride on the 
street car to 12th street. 
Mr. W. F. Hendrickson guided the visitor to 
two of the nearby marshes. The first was a hole 
about the size of a city block, with some six 
feet depth of water, and perhaps as much more 
of mud, and a considerable growth of cattails. 
But imagine, you readers who have visited the 
gallinule in his native haunts, this little swale 
was bounded on its four sides by busy city 
streets, and at one corner a large building was 
being erected, yet this was the home of 
gallinules! Mr. Flendrickson said so, and one 
of the birds promptly confirmed him. 
The writer’s previous experience with marsh 
birds had led him to believe that this was a 
favorable date to expect the rails to be house¬ 
keeping, but rather too early to find nests of the 
gallinules, and a later trip had been planned for 
them. Hence after surveying the strange galli¬ 
nule abiding place, a couple of vacant lots were 
crossed, and the marsh reached where Mr. 
Hendrickson had seen rails. This had a much 
larger area than the first, stretching away in 
irregular shape for perhaps a half mile, with the 
piers of the Blackwell's Island Bridge in the 
background. It was for the most part much 
shallower than the other, high rubber boots 
being sufficient to keep one dryshod, by using 
care. 
A half hour’s investigation of this marsh 
brought the explorer suddenly on a nest of the 
Florida gallinule, containing nine eggs. Among 
the cattails, the dead leaves and stems of last 
year’s crop had been used to construct a founda¬ 
tion raising the nest, which ’was built of the 
same material, nicely above the water. A pho¬ 
tographic record of the find was soon secured, 
and the camera focussed on the nest, and partly 
concealed, was left to be tripped by a long tube 
and bicycle pump, when the bird should return 
to the nest—if she would. Notwithstanding 
care, however, she refused to come to her home 
while the camera was there, preferring to remain 
hidden in the cattails, and from this vantage 
ground to protest against the proceedings, so 
the camera was removed. Neither was the 
writer successful in finding nests of rails, nor. 
in fact, locating anything else, save the red¬ 
winged blackbirds and marsh wrens. Never¬ 
theless there are many wonderful and inter¬ 
esting facts regarding marsh bird life centering 
about these marshes. 
The incongruity of photographing the nest 
and eggs of such a retiring bird as the gallinule, 
while the cry of the huckster rings in one’s 
ears from the city street a few rods distant, is 
indescribable. About these spots the sora and 
the Virginia rail, least American bitterns, and 
the American coot have all been observed, and 
there are records of nests for all of these ex¬ 
cept the American bittern, which has been seen 
in the nesting season, and doubtless breeds here, 
too. Formerly a great salty marsh covered the 
area between 4th street and Thompson avenue; 
streets were filled in, and the marsh thus cut 
up into smaller sloughs. As the supply of salt 
water was cut off and the influx of fresh water 
continued, these ponds gradually became fresh. 
One after another these spots that have been 
the homes of wildfowl have become the sites of 
houses and factories. The present season may 
see the last of these marshes and their wild life. 
Mr. Hendrickson has' seen a gallinule in the 
back yard of a dwelling house in the spring, 
crossing and recrossing it, seeking the cattails 
that it left there the previous fall, calling dis¬ 
mally for the mud and water, and the wild, free 
life that it should find there nevermore. Musk¬ 
rats have been killed by trolley cars while cross¬ 
ing from one pond to another. It is inevitable 
that civilization must take its course, with the 
attendant settling of once wild land, and the 
driving back, perhaps to eventual extermination 
of the creatures that formerly roamed such 
areas, “monarchs of all they surveyed,” but for 
many nature lovers these changes must bring 
sore hearts. 
Mr. John Hendrickson, who is a genuine 
sportsman and a champion shot, remembers 
when in his boyhood days these ponds abounded 
in almost every species of “bay birds,” yellow- 
legs, plover and many kinds of ducks. Even 
yet several species of ducks and some plover are 
taken there. Where one can make the acquaint¬ 
ance of the marsh birds during the nesting 
period, many delightful experiences are in store. 
The Virginia rail lays from nine to sixteen or 
eighteen eggs, and possibly in some cases 
more. The birds sit from the laying of the first 
egg, at least in some cases, and the eggs ac¬ 
cordingly hatch in the same order in which they 
are laid. The newly hatched chicks have no 
resemblance to the parents, having short beaks 
and a thick covering of black down. They look 
like tiny domestic chicks, and they run from 
the nest in a short time after hatching. Con¬ 
sequently one parent usually takes charge of the 
brood as they hatch, while the other continues 
the duty of incubation. The young will take to 
the water quite readily, and swim with sur¬ 
prising strength for such tiny creatures; in fact, 
much stronger proportionately than do the 
parents. The parent with a brood, wishing to 
cross a bit of open water, flies laboriously 
across, the feet dragging in the water, and calls 
to the young, who plunge in and swim bravely 
to the opposite side. Like most young birds 
of the sort known as precocious, the rail chicks 
are adepts at hiding. I have seen nine young 
rails brought forth from their hiding places in 
grass scarcely more than an inch high, and 
where one would have said their jet black little 
forms would have been most conspicuous, yet 
until carefully searched for they remained well 
concealed in this scant cover. 
The sora seldom seeks the same location for 
a home as that where the Virginia rail is re¬ 
siding, as far as my experience goes, nor is more 
than one pair apt to be found nesting within a 
limited area, while the Virginia is sometimes 
found nesting in small settlements of several 
pairs. The sora is much more apt to nest in 
SMALL MARSH—LONG ISLAND CITY, GREATER NEW YORK. 
LARGE MARSH—LONG ISLAND CITY, GREATER NEW YORK. 
