(_Rallus virginianus._)
This miniature of _Rallus elegans_ or king rail, is found throughout
the whole of temperate North America as far as the British Provinces,
south to Guatemala and Cuba, and winters almost to the northern limit
of its range. A specimen was sent by Major Bendire to the National
Museum from Walla Walla, Wash., which was taken Jan. 16, 1879, when
the snow was more than a foot deep. Other names of the species are:
Lesser clapper rail, little red rail, and fresh-water mud hen. The male
and female are like small king rails, are streaked with dark-brown and
yellowish olive above, have reddish chestnut wing coverts, are plain
brown on top of head and back of neck, have a white eyebrow, white
throat, breast and sides bright rufous; the flanks, wing linings and
under tail coverts are broadly barred with dark brown and white; eyes
red.
The name of this rail is not as appropriate to-day as it was when
Virginia included nearly all of the territory east of the Mississippi.
It is not a local bird, but nests from New York, Ohio, and Illinois
northward. Short of wing, with a feeble, fluttering flight when flushed
from the marsh, into which it quickly drops again, as if incapable of
going farther, it is said this small bird can nevertheless migrate
immense distances. One small straggler from a flock going southward,
according to Neltje Blanchan, fell exhausted on the deck of a vessel
off the Long Island coast nearly a hundred miles at sea.
The rail frequents marshes and boggy swamps. The nest is built
in a tuft of weeds or grasses close to the water, is compact and
slightly hollowed. The eggs are cream or buff, sparsely spotted with
reddish-brown and obscure lilac, from 1.20 to 1.28 inches long to .90
to .93 broad. The number in a set varies from six to twelve. The eggs
are hatched in June.
The Virginia rail is almost exclusively a fresh-water bird. It is not
averse to salt water, but even near the sea it is likely to find out
those spots in the bay where fresh-water springs bubble up rather than
the brackish. These springs particularly abound in Hempstead and Great
South Bay on the south coast of Long Island. Brewster says the voice of
the Virginia rail, when heard at a distance of only a few yards, has a
vibrating, almost unearthly quality, and seems to issue from the ground
directly beneath the feet. The female, when anxious about her eggs or
young, calls _ki ki-ki_ in low tones and _kiu_, much like a flicker.
The young of both sexes in autumn give, when startled, a short,
explosive _kep_ or _kik_, closely similar to that of the Carolina rail.
There is said to be more of individual variation in this species than
in any of the larger, scarcely two examples being closely alike. The
chin and throat may be distinctly white, or the cinnamon may extend
forward entirely to the bill. This species is found in almost any place
where it can find suitable food. Nelson says: "I have often flushed
it in thickets when looking for woodcock, as well as from the midst
of large marshes. It arrives the first of May and departs in October;
nests along the borders of prairie sloughs and marshes, depositing from
eight to fourteen eggs. The nest may often be discovered at a distance
by the appearance of the surrounding grass, the blades of which are in
many cases interwoven over the nest, apparently to shield the bird from
the fierce rays of the sun, which are felt with redoubled force on the
marshes. The nests are sometimes built on a solitary tussock of grass,
growing in the water, but not often. The usual position is in the soft,
dense grass growing close to the edge of the slough, and rarely in
grass over eight inches high. The nest is a thick, matted platform of
marsh grasses, with a medium-sized depression for the eggs."
Some of the rails have such poor wings that it has been believed by
some unthinking people that they turn to frogs in the fall instead
of migrating--a theory parallel with that which formerly held that
swallows hibernate in the mud of shallow ponds.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA RAIL.
5/8 Life-size.
FROM COL. F. KAEMPFER.
A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO.
COPYRIGHT 1900, BY
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]