Is a bird well known in the British islands. It is a large slender bird, with a black bill, one inch and three quarters long. Its weight is four ounces and a half. The upper parts of the plumage are black, edged with olive brown, the lower parts ash colored. This bird frequents the banks of springs or brooks, which it never leaves; preferring the limpid streams, whose fall is rapid, and whose bed is broken with stones and fragments of rocks. The habits of the water ouzel are very singular. Aquatic birds, with palmated feet, swim or dive; those which inhabit the shores, without wetting their body, wade with their tall legs; but the water ouzel, which, it must be remembered, is neither a wader nor a diver, but one of the passerine birds, walks quite into the flood, following the declivity of the ground. It is observed to enter by degrees, till the water reaches its neck; and it still advances, holding its head not higher than usual, though completely immersed. It continues to walk under the water; and even descends to the bottom, where it saunters as on dry land. M. Herbert, who watched one immersing itself in the lake of Nantua, and who communicated the fact to M. de Buffon, says, "I perceived several times, that as often as it waded deeper than the knee, it displayed its wings, and allowed them to hang to the ground. I remarked, too, that when I could discern it at the bottom of the water, it appeared enveloped with air, which gave it a brilliant surface, like that on some sorts of beetles, which in water are always inclosed in a bubble of air. Its view, in dropping its wings on entering the water, might be to confine this air; it was certainly never without some, and it seemed to quiver." It is a curious fact, that even the young ones, before they are quite feathered, are able to make their way under water, the same as the older birds.

These birds are found in many parts of Europe. The female makes her nest on the ground, in some mossy bank near the water, of hay and dried fibres, lining it with dry oak leaves, and forming to it a portico or entrance

1 Rallus aquaticus, LIN. The genus Rellus has the bill longer than the head, slender, slightly arched, or straight, compressed base, cylindrical at the tip; upper mandible channelled; nostrils lateral, longitudally cleft in the furrow, half closed by a membrane; legs long and stout, with a small naked spur above the knee; the three anterior toes divided; the posterior articulated on the tarsus; wings rounded, the third and fourth feathers longest.

of moss. The nest is in its color so closely similar to that of the surrounding objects, that it is almost impossible to discover it except when the bird is entering. The eggs are five in number; white, tinged with a fine blush of red. It will sometimes pick up insects at the edge of the water. When disturbed, it usually flirts up its tail, and makes a chirping noise. Its song in spring is said to be very pretty. In some places it is supposed to be migratory.

THE AMERICAN RAILI

AFFORDS the sportsman a most agreeable anrusement, and a delicious repast. In Virginia, it is called sora, and in South Carolina, the coot. Its history is involved in profound mystery. No one can detect the first moment of arri val; yet, all at once, the reedy shores, and grassy marshes of our large rivers, swarm with them, thousands of them being sometimes found within the space of a few acres. These, when they do venture on the wing, seem to fly so feebly, and in such short fluttering flights among the reeds, as to render it highly improbable to most people that they could possibly make their way over an extensive country. Yet on the first smart frost that occurs, the whole suddenly disappear, as if they had never been.

When the reeds along the shores of the Delaware have attained their full growth, the rail resort to them in great numbers to feed on the seeds of this plant, of which they are immoderately fond. As you walk along the em

bankment of the river at this season, you hear them squeaking in every direction like young puppies; if a stone be thrown among the reeds, there is a general outcry, and a reiterated kuk, kuk, kuk, something Hke that of a guinea fowl. Any sudden noise, or the discharge of a gun, produces the same effect. In the mean time, none are to be seen, unless it be at high water; for when the tide is low, they universally secrete themselves among the reeds, and you may walk past and even over them, without seeing a single individual. Their flight through the reeds is exceedingly low; and shelter being abundant, is rarely extended far. They swim and dive with great rapidity, and sometimes when wounded, they dive, and rising under the gunwale of the boat, secrete themselves there, moving round as the boat moves, until they have an opportunity of escaping unnoticed. They are feeble and delicate in every thing but the legs, which seem to possess great vigor and energy, and their bodies being so remarkably thin, as to be less than an inch and a quarter through transversely, they are enabled to pass between the reeds like rats. When seen, they are almost constantly getting up the tail.

These birds are also numerous near Detroit, in the lagoons, where another species of reed grows of which they are fond. In New Jersey, where there are no reeds, they are never to be found; but wherever the reeds are, there the rails are sure to be in great numbers.

In the United States are also found, the Virginian rail and the clapper rail.

ORDER XIV.-PINNATIPEDES.

BIRDS of this order have the bill middle-sized and straight; upper mandible slightly curved at the tip; legs of medium size; tarsi slender or compressed; three toes before and one behind, with rudiments of webs along the toes; hind toe articulated interiorly on the tarsus.

THE COOTI

Is a well known bird. It weighs from twenty-four to twenty-eight ounces. Wilson is inclined to believe that the American coot is a different species from the European, from the circumstance that the membrane in the former is of a chesnut color, instead of white; though in other respects they seem to be the same. In Pennsylvania it is called the mud-hen. The bald part

1 Fulica atra, LIN. The genus Fulica has the bill middle-sized, strong, conical, broad at the base; the ridge projecting in front, and dilated into a naked plate; both mandibles of the same length, the upper slightly curved, and reduced at the base, the lower forming an angle; nostrils lateral, in the middle of the bill, longitudinally cleft, half closed by a membrane; legs long, slender, naked above the knee; all the toes very long, connected at their base, and furnished along their sides with scalloped membranes.

of the head, which in the water-hen is red, in the coot is white. The upper parts of its plumage are black, the breast and belly white. As the coot is a larger bird than the water-lien, which it much resembles, it is always seen in larger streams, and more remote from mankind. It there makes a nest of such weeds as the stream supplies, and lays them among the reeds, floating on the surface, and rising and falling with the water. The reeds among which it is built keep it fast, so that it is seldom washed into the middle of the stream. But if this happens, which is sometimes the case, the bird sits

in her nest, like a mariner in his boat, and steers, wi with her legs, her cargo into the nearest harbor; there, having attained her port, she continues to sit in great tranquillity, regardless of the impetuosity of the current; and, though the water penetrates her nest, she hatches her eggs in that wet condition. The coot is by no means a rare bird in Britain, where it resides permanently, though with the seasons it changes its residence, It is rather a timid bird, very inert, and feeds in the evening, upon fishes, insects, seeds, and herbage. In Madagascar there is a coot with a red comb ik

cock.

THE CRESTED GREBE.1

THIS bird is about the size of a duck. Its bill, that part especially towards the head, is of a reddish color, and is somewhat more than two inches in length. On the top of the head and neck is a beautiful crest of feathers, those on the neck appearing like a collar or ruff, and seeming a good deal bigger than they really are; those on the top of the head are black, those on the sides of the neck are of a reddish or cinereous color; the back

1 Podiceps cristatus, LATH. The genus Podiceps has the bill middle size, straight, hard, compressed, in the form of an elongated and pointed cone; tip of the upper mandible slightly inclined; nostrils lateral, concave, oblong, closed behind by a membrane, opea in front, and pervious; legs long, placed far backwards; tarsi much compressed; fore toes much depressed, connected at their base, and furnished with a simple lobe; hind toe compressed and scalloped; claws broad, much depressed; no tail; wings short.

and wings are of a darkish brown, pretty much inclining to black, except some of the exterior edges of the wing feathers, which are white. The

breast and belly are of a light ash color; it has no tail; the legs and toes are broad and flat. It has an unpleasant cry, and will occasionally, when angered or pleased, raise or fall the feathers of its crest.

BIRDS of this order have the bill of various forms; legs short, placed more or less backwards; the anterior toes partially or wholly connected by webs, and in some families all the four toes united by one membrane; the hinder toe interiorly articulated to the tarsus, or, in some genera, wanting.

THE SKIMMER, OR CUTWATER,1

Is twenty inches in length, and in breadth three feet seven inches. The bill is of a very singular structure, the upper chap, or mandible, being above an inch shorter than the under, and the upper shuts into it, as a razor into its handle. The base of the bill is red, the rest black; and on the sides are several furrows. The forehead, chin, and all the under parts, are white; the upper parts of the plumage black, with a bar of white across each wing.

1

Rhynchops nigra, LIN. The genus Rhynchops has the bill long, straight, flattened into a blade, truncated at the apex; upper mandible much shorter than the under; nostrils lateral, marginal, remote from the base; legs slender; tarsus larger than the middle toe; the fore toes united by a membrane; hind toe joined on the tarsus; tail forked, and shorter than the wings.

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