FOREST AND STREAM. 
NATURAL EISTORY 
[MARCH 17, 1906. 

Wild Birds Nesting in New York. 
Notes on the Nesting of the American Coot, the 
Florida Gallinule, the Virginia Rail, the 
Sora Rail, etc., in and About 
Long Island City. 
A susy bustling railroad yard in the center of 
a thickly built-up district, almost entirely sur- 
rounded by factories, dwellings and public build- 
ings, with noisy, clanging trolleys, puffing, 
screeching locomotives, and swearing, shouting 
teamsters passing to and fro every minute of the 
day, would hardly appeal to the naturalist or 
lover of birds as a suitable field for the pursuit 
of his favorite pastime; still I know of one such 
spot close to the heart of our city that will repay 
a visit of the ornithologist. 
In Long Island City, beginning about half a 
mile from Thirty-fourth Street Ferry—or more 
definitely, at Fourth street—and extending to 
Thomson avenue on both sides of the north 
shore passenger and the main freight lines of 
the Long Island Railroad Company, are a suc- 
cession of small ponds formed by filling in 
streets and avenues across a salt marsh. These 
ponds in size are about two hundred feet wide 
by two to three hundred feet long, and origin- 
ally were very brackish, but gradually the rains 
have washed out the salt, so that at the present 
time, and for a number of years past, they are 
quite fresh, and now support a luxuriant growth 
of cattails, reeds and many other kinds of fresh- 
water plants. 
In my boyhood days, before the mud had be- 
come entirely hidden by dense growths of weeds, 
these ponds were famous places for yellowlegs, 
plover and almost every variety of bay bird and 
snipe; also for many kinds of wild ducks; and to 
this day plover and several kinds of ducks are 
killed in and about them. 
As the water freshened, many aquatic plants 
appeared, furnishing an abundant supply of food 
and good shelter for birds that love to frequent 
such places, and these latter were not long in 
taking advantage of it. 
The first birds I can recollect nesting here 
were the song sparrow (Melospiza fasciata), the 
red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phaniceus), and 
the long-billed marsh wren (Cistothorus palus- 
tris). Then one summer, or to be more exact, 
in the month of July, 1889, my attention was at- 
tracted several nights by a full rounded note or 
call, clear and distinct, which a couple of friends 
insisted must be the call of some kind of a frog, 
but which I believed to be the note of a bird. 
So one morning to try to solve the mystery I 
called my old hound—which, by the way, I could 
make trail anything from a mouse to a horse— 
and taking my gun, I went to the pond where 
I had heard this calling and, making myself 
comfortable on a high bank overlooking the 
pond, I ordered the old hound in. The water 
was quite deep, probably three feet or a little 
more, and the cattails grew to a height of five 
or six feet.from the surface, so that the hound 
was soon lost to sight, and I could only oc- 
casionally locate him by the movement of the 
cattails. I waited about ten minutes or so and 
was beginning to think that my friends might 
be right in their contention that it was a frog 
that made the noise, when suddenly the old 
dog opened and I was on my feet in an instant. 
At first uncertain, his voice gradually became 
more confident until I knew he was in close 
pursuit of something, and I was soon rewarded 
by seeing a bird flush from the cattails just 
ahead of him and I cut it down with a quick 
snap-shot. Wading out to where the bird had 
fallen, I picked up a sora rail (Porzana carolina) 
in summer plumage, and, returning to the bank, 
I again ordered the hound in and shortly killed 

another sora rail, which proved to be somewhat 
larger and of richer color than the first. This 
was the 17th day of July, 1889. That afternoon, 
on removing the skins, I opened the birds to de- 
termine their sex, and found the first one shot 
was a female and contained a fully developed 
egg, which, no doubt, would have been dropped 
that day had I not killed the bird, besides others 
not so fully developed; and the second one was 
a male. Next morning I again donned my old 
togs and made a careful search of the pond 
where I killed the soras, and succeeded in locat- 
ing the nest which contained but one egg, which 
I now have in my possession, as also I have 
the egg before mentioned as having been found 
in the bird. I still have the skins of both birds. 
Thinking there might be other specimens of 
this rail breeding hereabouts I hunted this and 
other ponds carefully, but, while finding several 
nests of the Virginia rail (Rallus virginianus), 
found no more soras. 
A season or two after the above incident my 
attention was attracted by a cooing sound, some- 
thing similar to that of a dove, and, having in 
mind my experience with the rails, I started to 
investigate and soon learned that the source of 
the cooing was a number of least bitterns 
(Botaurus exilis), which were breeding in these 
ponds. I found half a dozen or more nests con- 
taining eggs, a couple of sets of which I took 
and now have in my collection. Wishing to 
learn what else these ponds might shelter, I ex- 
plored several more of them, with the result 
that I found one large nest containing (if my 
recollection serves me right) about ten or a 
dozen mottled eggs about the size of a small 
hen egg. I did not disturb these as I was never 
able to see the birds clearly enough to identify 
the species, but I felt quite positive it was a 
Florida gallinule’s (Gallinula galeata) nest, for I 
had often seen and shot specimens of this bird 
in these ponds previous to finding this nest. 
A season or two later American coots (Fulica 
americana), or mud hens, as they are called in 
many places, made their appearance in these 
ponds and I shot several specimens, the skins 
of which I now have in my collection, but about 
this period business so engaged my attention 
that I could devote very little time to the study 
of natural history, and a number of years slipped 
by before I could again explore these ponds. 
In the meantime, however, I knew that speci- 
mens of all of the above birds, with the ‘excep- 
tion of the sora rail, inhabited these holes 
during the summer season, for I had become 
familiar with their notes and calls and, as I had 
to pass the ponds daily, I regularly heard and 
was thus able to identify the different species. 
From time to time I also saw specimens of these 
different birds and know that they remained in 
and about these pond holes all through the 
spring and summer, and only left with the 
advent of cold weather in October. In regard 
to the sora rails, in an adjacent swamp early in 
the fall I have killed several adult soras which 
still retained their summer plumage, and I be- 
lieve they were birds that had nested there. 
Of late years so numerous have the coots 
and gallinules become, especially the latter, that 
several men and boys have made it a practice 
to hunt them in the fall, and it is a common 
sight to see a man with a gun perched on the 
roof of a freight car watching one of these 
ponds, and they sometimes ‘kill three or four of 
a morning. 
The fact that these birds bred here in Long 
Island City having become known to naturalists, 
about the middle of July, 1904, Dr. Braislin, of 
Brooklyn, and Mr. Drake, of New York, both 
well-known ornithologists, called upon me and 
requested me to show them the ponds. Well, 
I had never met the Doctor nor Mr. Drake 
before. and, when I pointed out to them the 
ponds, I could tell by the expressions on their 
faces that they doubted me very much, for men 
and teams were passing back and forth on the 
filled-in banks surrounding the ponds, and there 
was the usual noise and confusion incident to a 
big railroad yard. On.this day neither one of 
these gentlemen was prepared to explore these 
ponds, for they had with them only long rubber 
boots, and they did not relish the idea of wading 
around almost to their shoulders in the dirty 
water and muck I showed them. Telling them 
of another swamp nearby where the water and 
mud were not so deep and where I thought we 
could probably find nests of the Virginia rail, 
the long-billed marsh wren and the least bittern, 
we went there, and had gone only a hundred 
feet or so, when I discovered a Virginia rail’s 
nest with five eggs in it. 
Thinking we might find a nest with a more 
complete set, we left this one and continued 
our search. We found five more Virginia rails’ 
nests, which the young had already left, as this 
was about the middle of July and rather late 
in the season to find nests with their eggs or 
young birds. We also found numerous nests 
of the red-winged blackbird and the long-billed 
marsh wren. Some of the latter had eggs in, 
but the former were all empty. We, however, 
could have caught several young blackbirds. 
Mr. Drake saw one least bittern, but we 
abandoned our search before finding any of their 
nests. Returning to the rail’s nest containing 
the five eggs, the old bird, as is the custom with 
this species, skulked back and forth just out of 
sight and kept up a continual scolding. Dr. 
Braislin took the nest and eggs for his col- 
lection. 
The following season, 1905, in the early part 
of June, Dr. Braislin and another gentleman, 
whose name I cannot recall just now, but who 
was, I believe, an assistant curator in the 
Museum of Natural History, New York city. 
called on me, but b.asiness prevented my going 
with them until late in the afternoon, so I 
showed them the ponds to hunt and left. Later 
on rejoining them, they reported that they had 
seen a large bird, which disappeared in the 
cattails so quickly they were unable to identify 
it, but had found no nests. Wading in, I first 
searched the fringe of cattails which grew 
around the border ‘of the pond and, finding noth- 
ing there, I worked my way out toa couple of 
bunches of cattails which grew near the center 
of the pond. I found the water more than waist- 
deep and covered with such a thick, stringy 
vegetable growth that it was with difficulty I 
was able to move about. Crossing this scum 
or growth from different parts of the pond and 
apparently converging at one of the above men- 
tioned patches of cattails, were several paths or 
lanes—such as muskrats might make—so I work- 
ed my way over to the cattails and soon located 
what appeared to be an old nest. Further search 
revealed a much fresher looking one, and I 
called to the Doctor to mark the place, so that 
he could go to it later on without delay. 
Making my way out to where the Doctor 
stood on the bank, while talking to him, I 
heard a Virginia rail calling in the next pond 
hole and went to search for its nest, which I 
found without difficulty, but it was empty, ap- 
parently having only just been finished. Work- 
ing my way out to the pond in the center of 
the cattails, I searched the latter as I circled 
the pond and, when about half way around, I 
heard a gallinule scolding and remained motion- 
less so as to try and locate it. Soon it made its 
appearance on an old muskrat house across the 
pond and kept skulking back and forth scolding 
me in loud tones. Telling the Doctor, who was 
standing on the bank overlooking the pond, that 
