MARSH HENS, MUD HENS, OR WATER HENS

Marsh Hens or Rails are small hen-shaped birds that are largely solitary, and heard more often than seen. Their narrow bodies – “thin as a rail” – enable the birds to slip through thick salt marsh grasses. They feed indiscriminately on all the small animals of the marsh, as well as on seeds. The Clapper Rail is the most common rail found at Fort Macon State Park, and has an astounding vocabulary often expressed as kek-kek-kek-kek, etc., or cha-cha-cha, etc. by Randy Newman

CLAPPER RAIL NEST

The number of eggs deposited varies; I never found more than seven in one nest, though I have been assured that eight or nine may be laid; six or seven is the average number, however. The laying season commences (here in North Carolina, at any rate) the last week in April, and continues until the middle of June, or late, as two broods are frequently raised. I found perfectly fresh eggs June 12^th, and have seen barely fledged birds in August. But the second and third weeks in May are great times for laying. Then, when the season is at its height, some idea of the countless numbers of rails in the marshes may be gained from the fact that baskets full of the eggs are gathered by the boys (and men too) and brought to the Beaufort market, where they sell for about five cents a dozen. When perfectly fresh they are very good to eat.

American Naturalsit - 1869

By Dr. Elliott Coues, U.S.A.

Fort Macon’s Rail-Road Accident

I do not wish to be tedious; but I have a story that I can vouch for as being something new. It is “another rail-road accident;” when will public opinion force the companies to be more careful? Suppressing an obtrusive pun upon iron and other rails, for it is unbecoming to joke over a melancholy case of suicide, I will merely say that a Clapper Rail was found lying dead upon the track that divides two pieces of marsh at Fort Macon. Now we have all read certain singular stories, perhaps in “Ord’s Wilson,” to the effect that rails are subject to remarkable spells of fear or anger, or something of that sort, that throw them into epileptic fits. I thought at first, here was a real case in point; for the bird was dead, yet without a sign of external violence, even so much as the ruffling of the plumage. Stooping to pick him up, however, I found that he had got both legs wedged fast in the crack between the ends of two contiguous rails; he was in fact so firmly caught that I had some trouble in liberating his dead body. He had evidently tried to walk between the rails instead of stepping over them; but how he ever managed to “put his foot in it” so effectively I cannot imagine, for there was not a fourth of an inch of space. Still the fact remains. In the inquest held upon this unlucky rail – victim of the “blind decrees of fate,” as the novelists say – I discovered abundant cause of death against the iron. Both shoulder blades and one coracoid were broken; the other coracoid was dislocated; there was a double fracture of the merry-thought, and a crack in the keel of the breastbone; while all the muscles of the breast were terribly bruised, and full of blood-clots.

American Naturalist – 1869

By Dr. Elliott Coues, U.S.A.