THE SORA RAIL. 



No. 199. 



SORA RAIL. 



A. O. U. Xo. 214. Porzana Carolina (Linn.). 



Synonyms. — Carolina Rail; Soea Kail, SoREE. 



Description. — Adult: Above olive-brown varied by black and white in 

 spots and stripes on back and scapulars, — the black broad and central, the white 

 narrow and marginal; region about base of bill, chin, throat, and median crown- 

 stripe black; cheeks behind, sides of throat, and breast bluish ash: below olive- 

 brown to dusky, sharply barred with white, whitening on middle of belly; under 

 tail-coverts tawny or tawny-washed; wing-quills fuscous; edge of wing and of 

 first primary white; bill yellow, darkening on tip of upper mandible. Immature: 

 Without black on head and neck; chin whitish; throat and breast washed with 

 light brown. Downy young : Sooty black, the down interspersed sparingly with 

 longer glossy black hairs; a tuft of bright orange bristles on throat, — stiff and 

 inclined forward ; and a bright red excrescence at base of upper mandible. Length 

 8.00-9.50 (203.2-241.3); wing 4.20 ( 106.7) ; tau 2 -°° <50.8); bill .83 (21. 1) ; 

 tarsus 1.36 (34.5) ; middle toe and claw 1.85 (47.). 



Recognition Marks.- -Che wink size, but stouter in appearance; marsh- 

 skulking habits; short yellowish bill. 



Nest, a raised platform of grasses and sedge, usually placed centrally in 

 grass tussock of swamp. Eggs, 8-15, dull buffy or ochraceous-burT (and so darker 

 than eggs of Rallus virginianus) ; spotted and dotted with dark brown and with 

 purplish shell-markings. Av. size. 1.24 x .00 (31.5 x 22.9). 



General Range. — Temperate North America, breeding chiefly northward, 

 but less commonly on the Pacific Coast. Casually north to southern Greenland. 

 South to the West Indies and northern South America. 



Range in Ohio. — Common summer resident and migrant throughout the 

 state. Much more common than the preceding species. 



IF a correspondent writes me of a ••curious brown bird" which lie "shot 

 yesterday in a swamp." or "picked up this morning under the telegraph 

 wires"; and if lie accompanies the letter with a spool-box about a half an inch 

 in thickness (O. N. T. preferred) under convoy of two two-cent stamps, I 

 confidently expect to rind a Sora Rail. Yes, there it is. lying on its side; 

 because that is the way a Rail fits most easily into a shallow box. "As thin 

 as a Rail" does not refer to the Lincoln variety of split trees, but to this bird 

 and his congeners. The birds are bilaterally compressed in order to enable 

 them to slip readily between the close-set stalks of vegetation. And this 

 they do with almost incredible rapidity, and without leaving a wake of motion 

 by which their course may be traced. 



Like the King Rail the Sora rises to a clog; or if caught feeding inshore 

 some little ways from his watery fastnesses, he flits over the tops of the reeds, 

 drops down suddenly, and loses himself immediately in the maze. It is idle 



