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RAIL - LoveToKnow Article on RAIL (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-17) |
 | | Rallus, of unknown origin), originally the English name of two birds, distinguished from one another by a prefix as land-rail and water-rail, but latterly applied in a much wider sense to all the species which are included in the family Rallidae. |
 | | The water-rail, locally known as the skiddy or billcock, is the Rallus aquaticus of ornithology, and seems to be less abundant than the preceding, though that is in some measure due to its frequenting places ipto which from their swampy nature men do not often intrude. |
 | | Having a general resemblance to the land~rail,i it can be in a moment distinguished by its partly red and much longer bill, and the darker coloration of its plumagethe upper parts being of an olive brown with fl streaks, the breast and belly of a sooty grey, and the flanks dull fl barred with white. |
| www.1911encyclopedia.org /R/RA/RAIL.htm (846 words) |
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