It is also the boatman's business to keep a sharp look-out, and give the word 'Mark!' when a Rail springs on either side without being observed by the sportsman, and to note the exact spot where it falls until he has picked it up; for this, once lost sight of, owing to the sameness in the appearance of the reeds, is seldom found again. In this manner the boat moves steadily through and over the reeds, the birds flushing and falling, the gunner loading and firing, while the boatman is pushing and picking up. The sport continues till an hour or two after high-water, when the shallowness of the water, and the strength and weight of the floating reeds, and also the backwardness of the game to spring as the tide decreases, oblige them to return. Several boats are sometimes within a short distance of each other, and perpetual cracking of musketry prevails along the whole reedy shores of the river. In these excursions it is not uncommon for an active and expert marksman to kill ten or twelve dozen in a tide. They are usually shot singly, though I have known five killed at one discharge of a double-barreled piece. These instances are rare. The flight of these birds among the reeds is usually low; and shelter being abundant, is rarely extended to more than fifty or one hundred yards. When winged and uninjured in their legs, they swim and dive with great rapidity, and are seldom seen to rise again. I have several times on such occasions discovered them clinging with their feet to the reeds under the water; and at other times skulking under the floating reeds with their bill just above the surface. 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 or compressed as to be less than an inch and a quarter through transversely, they are enabled to pass between the reeds like rats. Yet though their flight among the reeds seems feeble and fluttering, every sportsman who is acquainted with them here must have seen them occasionally rising to a considerable height, stretching out their legs behind them, and flying rapidly across the river where it is more than a mile in width." [Illustration: PURPLE GALLINULE. (_Gallinula Porphyrio._ WILSON.)]