rail,any of more than 100 127 species of slender marsh birds of the family Rallidae (order Gruiformes), somewhat chicken-shaped marsh birds, with short rounded wings, short tail, large feet, and long toes, of the family Rallidae (order Gruiformes). The name is sometimes used to include coots and gallinules, which belong to the same family, but coots and gallinules are far more ostentatious. Coots and gallinules flock like ducks, swim in open water, and waddle conspicuously on shore. By contrast, rails are secretive birds, hiding among reeds at the water’s edge by day and uttering their calls mostly at night.

Rails are distributed throughout the world, except in high latitudes. They vary in size from

that of a sparrow,

about 11


to 45 cm (4 to 18 inches) in length

, to that of a small chicken, about 45 cm (18 in



Their loud calls

, especially at night,

reveal their presence in dense vegetation. Many are excellent game birds; when flushed, they take wing reluctantly,


fly a short distance, and then


drop to the ground. Their slender build facilitates running through reeds and marsh grasses. They are mostly dull coloured in grays and browns. Many are barred in


irregular patterns. Short-billed species are often called crakes.

Rails hunted as game in the U.S. United States are the king rail (Rallus elegans), a reddish brown bird the size of a small chicken; the clapper rail (R. longirostris), a grayer form; the Virginia rail (R. limicola; see photograph), reddish brown and about 25 cm (10 in.inches) in length; and the sora (see crake). The little yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) and the American black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis) are too scarce and too small (about 15 cm [6 inches]) to be of interest to the hunter.

The corncrake, or land rail , or corncrake (Crex crex), is a widespread European crake. Less abundant but more widely distributed (extending to northern Africa) is the water rail (Rallus R. aquaticus), a slender bird with a long reddish bill.

Several flightless species occur on remote oceanic islands. The Inaccessible Island rail (Atlantisia rogersi) is a tiny bird , the smallest flightless bird in the world, is found only on Inaccessible Island in the Tristan da Cunha group in the South Atlantic Ocean. The wekas , two Gallirallus species (considered by some authorities to be one species, G. australis), of New Zealand , are about the size of chickens. (For Bensch’s rail, which is not a true rail, see mesite.)