Fifteen of the one hundred and eighty known species of the family Rallidæ, which includes the rails, gallinules and coots, inhabit North America.
The rails are not fitted for easy flight and find safety from an enemy by running and hiding, only taking to flight when all other means of escape have been exhausted. They not only have “a body proportioned and balanced for running, but also capable of compression to the narrowness of a wedge, in order to pass readily through the thick growths of the marshes, and also to aid them, perhaps, in their peculiar habit of walking on the bottom under the water in search of food.” Their feet, because of their large size and the length of the toes, are well adapted to the soft mire and floating vegetation in which they live. With long legs and well developed muscles the rails are able to “run like very witches in their reedy mazes, and were it not for their sharp, cackling voices, their presence would scarcely be detected.”
Unless approached too rudely, the female when setting on her nest will allow a very close inspection. She will seem to be as interested in the observer as he is in her. There will seem to be an expression of wonder in her face. If she is approached more closely than she likes she slips from her nest and gracefully runs through the reeds and grass and soon disappears.
The nest is usually constructed with flag stems and grasses. When the nests are built on dry ground they are usually placed in a depression in a tuft of grass and somewhat resemble the nest of the meadow lark. The nests are usually placed over water in tufts of marsh-grass or flags. Frequently the bottom of the nest is in the water and the top a few inches above it.
Mr. Silloway says: “The King Rail is said to be irritable and quarrelsome in its disposition, and it is especially overbearing toward its neighbors. The species should be named the ‘queen rail,’ for the female is without doubt the head of the family. Is it not she who sometimes takes possession of the homes of her meek neighbors, the gallinules? Is it not she who defends her home so spiritedly when it is threatened? Hence it seems to me that the King Rail is more king by marriage than in his own right. She lords it over the gentle-spirited mudhens with whom she dwells, and frequently saves herself the labor of making a nest and the time to lay so many eggs, by appropriating both nest and eggs of a comfortably settled gallinule. I have frequently found nests containing incubated eggs of the Florida gallinule and fresh eggs of the rail—indubitable evidence to me that the rail was the usurper of the home.”
BETWEEN THE DAYLIGHT AND THE DARK.
She sat in the deepening twilight awaiting the coming of her lover. The wind whispered in the rustling tree tops, but she heeded it not, though she turned her handsome head sharply when a thoughtless katydid near her sent forth one shrill note.
“He is late tonight,” she murmured softly, as she gave a graceful little shake to her fluffy brown suit and settled herself anew. Then she bent her beautiful head and gently scratched her ear with her right reversible toe.
There came no sound of wings, but the branch on which she sat quivered beneath an added weight, and she rolled her round eyes affectionately toward the new comer, a great horned owl, with a welcoming gurgle, in which was a note of expectation. Her lover was a handsome fellow, with great tufts over his ears, and he had brought a “gift for his fair,” though it was not a dainty box of bonbons produced from his overcoat pocket. He lifts his broad wings, bends his head, and produces from his crop a newly caught frog. His mistress nestles close, with fluttering wings and upturned beak, and receives the great dainty with an evident pleasure which delights him. He tries again. This time the convulsive effort brings forth to light a field mouse, garnished with two grasshoppers and a black cricket, which his lady receives with the pretty infantile attitudes and flutterings which all ladies think so becoming and attractive. Then they snuggle up close together, as is the way of lovers, and sit so still they might have been mistaken for a pair of stuffed owls—indeed one of them was—save for the occasional turning round of the head in that mechanical way affected by owls, for they are watchful, as all wood creatures have need to be.
“Why didst thou tarry so long, my brave?” she finally murmured, as she fondly toyed with the soft mottled feathers on his broad breast.