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G1ENUS 78. RALLUS. RAIL,
SPECIES 1. R. CREPITVINS
CLAPPER RAIL.
[Plate LXII.-Fig. 2.]
ajrct. Zool. Jo. 407.-TURT. Syst. p. 430.-LATII. Syn. v. 3, P.
229, .No. 2.-PEALE'S Museum, JXo. 4400.
THis is a very numerous and well known species, inhabiting
our whole Atlantic coast from New England to Florida. It is
designated by different names, such as the Mud-hen, Clapper
Rail, Meadow-clapper, Big Rail, &c. &c. Though occasionally
found along the swampy shores, and tide waters, of our large
rivers, its principal residence is in the salt marshes. It is a bird
of passage, arriving on the coast of New Jersey about the twen-
tieth of April, and retiring again late in September. I suspect
that many of them winter in the marshes of Georgia and Flori-
da, having heard them very numerous, at the mouth of Savan-
nah river, in the month of February. Coasters and fishermen
'often hear them while on their migrations, in spring, generally
a little before daybreak. The shores of New Jersey, within the
beach, consisting of an immense extent of flat marsh, covered
with a coarse reedy grass, and occasionally overflowed by the
sea, by which it is also cut up into innumerable islands by nar-
tow inlets, seem to be the favourite breeding place for these
birds, as they are there acknowledged to be more than double
In number to all other marsh fowl.
The Clapper Rail, or as it is generally called, the Mud-hen,
soon announces its arrival in the salt marshes, by its loud, harsh
and incessant cackling, which very much resembles that of a
Guinea fowl. This noise is fost genYCII' at(illg the night; and
is said to be always greatest before a storm About the twenti-
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