NORTH AMEBICAN MARSH BIRDS 309 



row aisles between the reeds. Robert J. Sim (1911), who kept a sora 

 rail in captivity until it became quite tame, says : 



A rail which is quite at ease is very different in appearance from one that is 

 frightened or at all nervous. Most birds of this kind to be seen in taxidermal 

 collections look as if they had been "scared stiff" — a state of things which is, 

 perhaps, consistest enough. But a live, comfortable rail going about his own 

 business is as graceful a bird as you could find, and plump like a guinea hen or 

 a Hubbard squash. The tail is carried in a horizontal position or droops 

 slightly. On the other hand, when filled with apprehension the bird is very 

 slim, the head is lowered and extended, and the tail is cocked up or is twitched 

 up at every step. 



The sora, Uke other rails, can swim well or even dive, if necessary. 

 It often swims across narrow strips of water, rather than fly. C. J. 

 Maynard (1896) writes: 



All the rails swim and dive well but I think the Carolinas rather excel them 

 all in this respect, for they will not only take readily to the water, but will pass 

 beneath it with great facility, and I once saw one run nimbly along the bottom 

 of a brook, the water of which was about a foot deep, by clinging to aquatic 

 plants, and crossing it obliquely, emerged on the other side, thus passing over 

 some 15 feet while submerged. 



William Brewster (1902) has described the various notes of this 

 rail remarkably well, as follows : 



In the more open, grassy stretches of meadow, as well as among the beds of 

 cat-tail flags but seldom, if ever, in thickets of bushes, we also hear, after the 

 middle of April, mingling with the notes of Virginia rails and the din of countless 

 frogs, the love song of the Carolina rail, a sweet, plaintive "er-e" given with a 

 rising inflection and suggesting one of the "scatter calls" of the quail. Such, at 

 least, is its general effect at distances of from 50 to 200 or 300 yards, but very 

 near at hand it developes a somewhat harsh or strident quality and sounds more 

 like "ka-€," while at the extreme limits of ear range one of the syllables is lost 

 and the other might be easily mistaken for the peep of a Pickering's hyla. This . 

 note, repeated at short, regular intervals, manj^ times in succession, is one of the 

 most frequent as well as pleasing voices of the marsh in the early morning and 

 just after sunset. It is also given intermittently at all hours of the day, especially 

 in cloudy weather, while it is often continued, practically without cessation 

 through the entire night. 



Equally characteristic of this season and even more attractive in qualitj' is what, 

 has been termed the "whinny" of the Carolina rail. It consists of a dozen or 

 15 short whistles as sweet and clear in tone as a silver bell. The first 8 or 10 

 are uttered very rapidly in an evenly descending scale, the remaining ones more 

 deliberately and in a uniform key. The whole series is often followed by a vary- 

 ing number of harsher, more drawling notes given at rather wide intervals. 

 Although it is probable that the "whinny" is made by both sexes I have actually 

 traced it only to the female. She uses it, apparently, chiefly as a call to her 

 mate, but I have also repeatedly heard her give it just after I had left the imme- 

 diate neighborhood of her nest, seemingly as an expression of triumph or rejoic- 

 ing at the discovery that her eggs had not been molested. When especially 

 anxious for their safety and circling close about the human intruder she often 

 utters a low whining murmur closely resembling that whicli the muskrat makes 

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