THIS bird, sometimes called the salt-water marsh hen, is found in great abundance in the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast from New Jersey southward. It breeds in profusion in the marshes from the Carolinas to Florida, and has lately been found breeding on the coast of Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico, Dr. A. K. Fisher having taken an old bird and two young at Grand Isle in 1886. The clapper rail arrives on the south-eastern coast of New Jersey about the last of April, its presence being made known by harsh cries at early dawn and at sunset. Nest-building is commenced in the latter part of May, and by the first of June the full complement of eggs is laid, ranging, says Davie, from six to nine or ten in number, thirteen being the probable limit. Farther south the bird is known to lay as many as fifteen. On Cobb's Island, Virginia, the clapper breeds in great numbers, carefully concealing the nest in high grass. The color of the eggs is pale buffy-yellow, dotted and spotted with reddish-brown and pale lilac, with an average size of 1.72 × 1.20, but there is a great variation in this respect in a large series.

At the nesting-season the rails are the noisiest of birds; their long, rolling cry is taken up and repeated by each member of the community. The thin bodies of the birds often measure no more than an inch and a quarter through the breast. "As thin as a rail" is a well-founded illustrative expression.

"To get a good look at these birds in their grassy retreats," says Neltje Blanchan, "is no easy matter. Row a scow over the submerged grass at high-tide as far as it will go, listen to the skulking clatterers, and, if near by, plunge from the bow into the muddy meadow, and you may have the good fortune to flush a bird or two that rises fluttering just above the sedges, flies a few yards, trailing its legs behind it, and drops into the grasses again before you can press the button of your camera. A rarer sight still is to see a clapper rail running, with head tilted downward and tail upward, in a ludicrous gait, threading in and out of the grassy maze."

The rail can swim fairly well, but not fast. Its wings are short, but useful, and it is so swift-footed that dogs chase it in vain.