RAIL AND RAIL SHOOTING.
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BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH AND FISHING,” ETC.
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THE VIRGINIA RAIL. (Rallus Virginianus.)
THE SORA RAIL. (Rallus Carolinensis.)
With the present month commences the pursuit of this singular and delicious species of game, and, although as a sport it is not to be compared with the bolder and more varied interest of shooting over dogs on the upland, still the great numbers which are killed, and the rapidity with which shot after shot is discharged in succession, render Rail-shooting a very favorite pastime, more especially with the sportsmen of Philadelphia, in the vicinity of which city this curious little bird is found in the greatest abundance.
Of the rallidæ, or Rail family, there are many varieties in America, all of them more or less aquatic in their habits, and none of them being, as the Corncrake, or Land Rail, of Europe, purely terrestrial; though the little Yellow-Breasted, or New York Rail, Rallus Noveboracencis, approaches the most nearly to that type, being frequently killed in upland stubble or fallow fields.
The principal of these species, and those most worthy of notice, are—the Clapper Rail, or great Salt-Water Rail, variously known as the Meadow Hen, or Mud Hen; found very extensively along all the tide morasses, and salt meadows of the Atlantic coast, but more especially on the shores of Long Island, and in New Jersey, at Barnegat and Egg Harbor. This, the scientific name of which is Rallus crepitans, is the largest of the species; it is shot from row boats in high spring tides, when the water has risen so much as to render it impossible for the Rails either to escape by running, which they do at other times with singular fleetness, baffling the best dogs by the celerity with which they pass between the thick-set stalks of the reeds and wild oats, constituting their favorite covert, or to lurk unseen among the dense herbage.