Rails 
255 
wedge-shaped bodies are perfectly adapted. 
Compressed almost to a point in front, but 
broad and blunt behind where their queer 
little short-pointed tails stand up, the rails’ 
small figures thread their way in and out of the 
mazes over the oozy ground with wonderful 
rapidity. 
“As thin as a rail” means much to the cook 
who plucks one. It offers even a smaller bite than 
a robin to the epicure. When a gunner routs 
a rail it reluctantly rises a few feet above the 
grasses, flies with much fluttering, trailing its 
legs after it, but quickly sinks in the sedges 
again. Except in game bags, you rarely see 
a rail’s varied brown and gray back or its barred 
breast. The bill is longer than the head. The 
long, widespread, flat toes help the owner to 
tread a dinner out of the mud as well as to 
swim across an inlet; and the short hind toes 
enable him to cling when he runs up the rushes 
to reach the tassels of grain at the top. No 
doubt you once played with some mechanical 
toy that made a noise something like the 
peculiar, rolling cackle of the clapper rail. 
This “ marsh hen, ” which is common in the salt 
meadows along our coast from Long Island 
southward, continually betrays itself by its 
voice; otherwise you might never suspect its 
presence unless you are in the habit of pushing 
a punt up a creek to get acquainted with the 
