rails. Before I rose in the morning I heard them crying in full chorus;
and now and then during the day something would happen, and all at once
they would break out with one sharp volley, and then instantly all would
be silent again. Theirs is an apt name,--_Rallus crepitans._ Once I
watched two of them in the act of crepitating, and ever after that, when
the sudden uproar burst forth, I seemed to see the reeds full of birds,
each with his bill pointing skyward, bearing his part in the salvo. So,
far as I could perceive, they had nothing to fear from human enemies.
They ran about the mud on the edge of the grass, especially in the
morning, looking like half-grown pullets. Their specialty was
crab-fishing, at which they were highly expert, plunging into the water
up to the depth of their legs, and handling and swallowing pretty large
specimens with surprising dexterity. I was greatly pleased with them, as
well as with their local name, "everybody's chickens."

Once I feared we had heard the last of them. On a day following a sudden
fall of the mercury, a gale from the north set in at noon, with thunder
and lightning, hail, and torrents of rain. The river was quickly lashed
into foam, and the gale drove the ocean into it through the inlet, till
the shrubbery of the rails' island barely showed above the breakers. The
street was deep under water, and fears were entertained for the new
bridge and the road to the beach. All night the gale continued, and all
the next day till late in the afternoon; and when the river should have
been at low tide, the island was still flooded. Gravitation was
overmatched for the time being. And where were the rails, I asked
myself. They could swim, no doubt, when put to it, but it seemed
impossible that they could survive so fierce an inundation. Well, the
wind ceased, the tide went out at last; and behold, the rails were in
full cry, not a voice missing! How they had managed it was beyond my
ken.