The Clapper Rail, or Mud Hen, is one of the most remarkable, and like its relative, the Corncrake of England, makes its note heard all the night long. It is fourteen inches in length and eighteen in the stretch of the wings; the bill is two inches and a quarter long, slightly bent, and of a reddish-brown color; the upper part is black, and streaked with dull brown; the chin and streak over the eye are brownish-white; the fore neck and breast are reddish-brown; the flanks and vent black, with white tips to the feathers; the coverts of the wings are dark chestnut-brown, and the tail-feathers and quills dusky, without any margins; the legs are dull brown, and the irides dark red. This species is very common, during the summer, through all the latitudes of the United States, keeping near the sea-coast, as it prefers the salt marshes to the waters of the interior. It is a very noisy bird, especially during the night and before rain, which are, of course, the times when the _molusca crustacea_, and other small animals, upon which it feeds in the marshes, are in the greatest activity, and most easy to be obtained. Wilson's account of the casualties to which it is exposed in the breeding season, is so graphic, that we shall in part quote it. "About the twentieth of May," he says, "they usually begin building and laying at the same time; the first egg being usually dropped in a slight cavity lined with a little dry grass pressed for the purpose, which, as the eggs increase to their usual complement, is gradually added to till it rises to the height of twelve inches or more, doubtless to secure it from the rising of the tides. Over this the long, salt grass is artfully arched, to conceal it from the view above; but this very circumstance enables the experienced egg-hunter to distinguish the spot at the distance of thirty or forty yards, though, imperceptible to a common eye. The eggs are of a pale clay color, sprinkled with small spots of dark red, and measure somewhat more than an inch and a half in length by an inch in breadth, being rather obtuse at the small end. These eggs are delicious eating, far surpassing those of the domestic hen. The height of laying is about the first of June, when the people of the neighborhood go to the marshes _an egging_, as it is so called. So abundant are the nests of this species, and so dexterous some persons at finding them, that one hundred dozen of eggs have been collected by one man in a day. At this time the crows, the minx, and the foxes, come in for their share, but, not content with the eggs, these last often seize and devour the parents also. The bones, feathers, wings, &c., of the poor mud hen lie in heaps by the hole of the minx, by which circumstance, however, he himself is often detected and destroyed." It seems as if the very elements were in conspiracy against these birds; they "are subject to another calamity of a more extensive kind; after the greater part of