40 CLAPPER RAIL.
Adult Female. Plate CCIV. Fig. 2.
The Female, which is smaller than the male, is similar in colouring,
but has the tints somewhat duller.
Length to end of tail 14 inches, to end of claws 1 7 | ; extent of
wings 19J. Weight 7f oz.
( 41 )
THE V I R G I N I A N RAIL.
RALLUS VIRGINIANUS, LINN.
PLATE CCV. MALE, FEMALE, AND YOUNG.
THIS species, which, although smaller, bears a great resemblance to
the Great Red-breasted Rail or Fresh-water Marsh-Hen, is met with in
most parts of the United States at different seasons. Many spend the
winter within our southern limits, and I have found them at that time
in Lower Louisiana, the Floridas, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In the
Western country some have been know to remain until severe frost came
on, and there they usually stay to a much later period than in our Middle
Districts, from which they generally retire southward in the beginning of
October. During spring and summer, I observed some in different places
from the shores of the Wabash River in Illinois, to those of the St John's
in the British province of New Brunswick. In the latter district, they
were considered extremely rare birds by the inhabitants, some of whom
brought me a few as great curiosities. Farther north, I neither saw nor
heard of any; but on the borders of Lakes Erie and Michigan, they
breed in considerable numbers, as well as near our maritime districts.
In its habits the Rallus virginianus is intermediate between the R.
crepitans and R. carolinus: it obtains its food as well in salt-water marshes,
as in fresh meadows, watery savannahs, and the borders of ponds and
rivers. The latter situations, however, seem to suit it best during summer;
but whenever both kinds of places are combined, or near each other, there
you are sure to meet with it.
The time of breeding varies according to the latitude of the place. I
have found the female sitting on her eggs in the beginning of March, a
few miles from New Orleans; in that of April in Kentucky, near Henderson
; about a fortnight later near Vincennes, in Illinois ; and from the
10th of May to the middle of June, in the Middle and Eastern States.
The males usually arrive at the breeding-places a week or ten days before
the females. They travel silently and by night, as I have ascertained
by observing them proceed singly and in a direct course, at a height
of only a few feet, over our broad rivers, or over level land, when their
speed is such as is never manifested by them under ordinary circum