the neck drawn back, and the tail cocked up. They are poor flyers, as every one knows; so poor, it seems, that it is somewhat a matter of surprise that some of the family perform such extensive migrations. "When started on wing, a thing not easy to effect, except at high tide, they fly up in a remarkably weak, vague way, flap hurriedly a little distance, and settle suddenly again, with a peculiar motion of the wings, as if simply letting themselves drop. This circumstance makes these and other kinds of rails-they are all alike in this respect-the very easiest of all birds to shoot on the wing; and is one reason, perhaps the chief, that so many people are fond of rail-shooting. The birds in fact are not distinguished either as flyers or swimmers; their strong point is walking. As walkers, they have "few equals and no superiors." A glance at their long strong legs is sufficient to establish this fact, without the trouble of going into a marsh, and observing how every square foot of soft mud is marked with the impress of their feet-all the impressions made of course since the last tide. The rails' attitudes are not easily learned; when seen, the birds are generally in too much of a hurry for this, but some of their poses are extremely graceful. Audubon has caught them best of any one who has attempted their delineation. As any one will notice, who has an opportunity of seeing a rail leisurely stepping about, in fancied security, there is a connection between the muscles of the tail and legs. With every step there is a corresponding jerk of the tail, apparently involuntary, and regular as clock-work. The same movements are repeated by the head and neck, as in most birds; they all tend to secure in equilibrio the forces acting upon the centre of gravity, as this is thrown now over one, now over the other leg. The remarkable compression of the body, that enables the birds to pass between close-set reeds, need not be enlarged upon. The expression "thin as a rail," refers, I take it, to these birds, and not to what fences are made of; at least, if it doesn't, it might.

In the matter of food the Clappers are not over particular. They feed indiscriminately on all the small animals they find in the marsh, as well as on seeds. The little crabs known as "mud-fiddlers," however, are, in this locality, the chief article in their bill of fare. These have squarish bodies, generally less than an inch long; the smaller ones are swallowed whole; the larger ones get their legs, and particularly their one great claw, beaten off, before they find rest at last in a rail's gizzard. If one has the patience and good luck to be able to watch rails when the birds are securing and disposing of their prey, he will see that they do it much after the fashion of the smaller herons, as the Green, for instance. But the rails race after their meals more than herons do; there is less patient lying in wait, and altogether less "action" in the final blow.

Rails are among the most harmless and inoffensive of birds. All that they seem to want is to be let alone. But when wounded and caught, they make the best fight they can, and show good spirit. The bill is too slender and weak to be much of a weapon, and they scarcely attempt to use it; relying rather upon their sharp claws, which they employ to considerable effect.

A colony of rails, goes far towards relieving a marsh of part of its monotony. Retiring and unfamiliar as they are, and seldom seen, considering their immense numbers, yet they have at times a highly effective way of asserting themselves. Silent during a great part of the year, or at most only indulging in a spasmodic croak now and then, during the breeding season they are about the noisiest birds to be found anywhere. Let a gun be fired in the marsh, and like the reverberating echoes of the report, a hundred cries come instantly from as many startled throats. The noise spreads on all sides, like ripples on the water at the plash of a stone, till it dies away in the distance, only however to be repeated again upon the slightest provocation-or none. In the morning and evening, particularly, the rails seem perfectly

reckless, and their jovial, if unmusical, notes resound till the very reeds seem to quake. It is as if some irresistible joke was going the rounds, making every bird laugh outright as soon as it was told. With scarcely a change of name, in fact, the Clapper Rail's nature, and function in bird-society, is perfectly expressed. It should be spelled in French style -claqueur. Unobtrusive, unrecognized except by a few, almost unknown to the uninitiated, the birds steadily and faithfully fulfil their allotted parts; like claqueurs they fill the pit, ready at a sign, to applaud anything—or nothing— that may be going on in the drama of life before them.

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 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 little 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 railvictim of the "blind decrees of fate," as the novelists sayI discovered abundant cause of death, without falling back upon any hypothesis of mental emotion. He had beat him

self to 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.

REVIEWS.

HUXLEY'S CLASSIFICATION OF ANIMALS. Continued from Page 546. – Professor Huxley very clearly sets forth the characteristics of the group, or Subkingdom, of VERTEBRATA, and as plainly indicates the three Provinces into which it is divisible, viz: I. The ICHTHYOPSIDA, comprising the Fishes and Amphibians; II. The SAUROPSIDA, comprising the Reptiles and Birds; III. The MAMMALIA. These three groups are certainly well marked, and the affinities of their members have for a long time been noticed and agreed to. No one can doubt the close relationship existing between the Fishes and Amphibians (Salamanders, Frogs, etc.,); and since the discovery of the remarkable fossil form of Archeopteryx, which has been placed alternately in the classes of Reptiles and Birds, the characters of these two classes have been so thoroughly sifted as to prove their close affinity; neither can the distinctive characters of the class of Mammalia be questioned, though as has often been pointed out, and as Prof. Huxley also insists upon, the Mammals, Birds and Reptiles, or the Abranchiate Vertebrata, have certain characteristics in common, distinguishing them from the equally well defined group of Amphibians and Fishes, or the Branchiate Vertebrata.

In adopting M. de Blainville's three primary divisions of the Mammalia, as characterized by the reproductive organs, especially those of the female, Prof. Huxley states that he does "not mean to assert that M. de Blainville defined these different groups in a manner altogether satisfactory, or strictly in accordance with all the subsequently discovered facts of science, but his great knowledge and acute intuition led him to perceive that the groups thus named were truly natural divisions of the Mammalia. And the enlargement of our knowledge by subsequent investigation seems to me, in the main, only to have confirmed De Blainville's views." These primary divisions, or subclasses, are the Ornithodelphia, containing only the genera Ornithorhynchus and Echidna; the Didelphia, or the Marsupials; and the Monodelphia, embracing all the rest of the orders of the class, which, from "placental" characters, he places in five groups. Without either endorsing or attempting to disprove Prof. Huxley's views in relation to the special classification of the Mam

malia, we will simply compare the results of his system with those of the equally carefully considered one of Owen published ten years before. Both are strictly anatomical and confined (so far as tabulating the results are concerned) to one set of organs: Owen taking the modifications of the brain; Huxley the generative organs, or more especially the uterus and the placenta in connection with the development of the embryo.

Owen divides the Mammalia into four subclasses; Huxley into three. Owen's first three subclasses (the Archencephala, - Man; the Gyrencephala, - Ape, Lemur, Dog, Bear, Seal, Hog, Sheep, Horse, Tapir, Elephant, Manatee, Whale, etc.; and the Lissencephala, Sloth, Armadillo, Anteater, Bat, Mole, Hedgehog, Shew, Hare, Rat, etc.) are contained in Huxley's subclass Monodelphia.

Owen's fourth subclass (Lyencephala,--the Marsupials, and Echidna and Ornithorhynchus) is divided into two subclasses by Huxley, corresponding to the two orders of Owen, viz: subclass Didelphia of Huxley-order Marsupialia of Owen; and subclass Ornithodelphia of Huxley-order Monotremata of Owen.

The result of this comparison of two anatomical systems is favorable to the generally received orders of the class being established on firın grounds, for, with the exceptions following in parenthesis, both Huxley and Owen, though investigating from different stand points, have kept the orders intact, and have only changed the order of their relation, or succession, in accordance with the views each has taken regarding the value of groups more comprehensive than orders. (Man is considered by Owen as differing from all other Mammals in the cerebral character, and hence considered as a subclass; while Huxley, from the identity of the placenta with that of the Apes, Lemurs, Insectivora, Chiroptera and Rodentia, unites him with them in the group of Monodelphia with a discoidal deciduate placenta, but retains him as a suborder of the order of PRIMATES, which contains two other suborders, the Apes and the Lemurs, corresponding to Owen's order of Quadrumana. Huxley unites Owen's orders Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla - containing together the Tapir, Horse, Sheep, Hog, etc.—as two suborders under his order of UNGULATA, which, with the Cetacea, are united in a group characterized by the non-deciduate placenta. Huxley considers the genus Hyrax as the sole representative of a distinct order, removed to the next group, with the Proboscidia and Carnivora, having a zonary deciduate placenta).

After noticing the results of this hasty comparison, may we not ask why the character of the brain (provided the results are well founded by examination in such a manner as to leave no doubt of their correctness) should not be as good a guide as the anatomical structure of the uterus and placenta? It has been stated that in some respects the Cerebral system is liable to lead to errors. On the other hand, we read in Huxley's work that there is doubt as to the real position that some of the animals should hold in his system, on account of the very character he has taken for the basis of his classification not being known in some, and in others