SORA— SPARROW 895 



SORA or SOREE, the name given in North America to a Rail, 

 Porzana Carolina. 



SORE-FALCON or HAWK (Fr. sor or same; Low Latin 

 saurius), a bird of the first year that has not moulted, but properly 

 applicable only to those species which in that condition have 

 reddish plumage, and hence more often called " Red Hawks." The 

 ordinary spelling " Soar " (as though from the French essorer and 

 supposed Low Latin exatirare) is misleading, for the word has 

 nothing to do Avith flight but only colour, and is apparently akin 

 to " sorrel " applied to a horse. (Cf. Littr6, sub voce, citt.) 



SOUTH-SOUTHERLY, one of the many names of the Long- 

 tailed Duck. 



SPARLIN-FOWL, a name of the female or immature Goos- 

 ander, as old as Willughby's time but apparently now obsolete. 

 Sparlin or Sparling is a local name of the Fish more commonly 

 called Smelt, Osmerus eperlanus. 



SPARROW (A.-S. Speanva ; Icel. Sporr ; Old High Germ. Sparo 

 and Sparwe), a word perhaps (like the equivalent Latin Passer) 

 originally meaning almost any small bird, but gradually restricted in 

 signification and nowadays in common English applied to only four 

 kinds, "which are further differentiated as Hedge -Sparrow, House- 

 Sparrow, Tree -Sparrow and Reed -Sparrow — the last being a 

 Bunting (p. 61) — though when used Avithout a prefix the second 

 of these is usually intended. 



1. The Hedge-Sparrow, called Dunnock in many parts of 

 Britain, the Accentor modularis of ornithologists, is the little brown- 

 backed bird with an iron-grey head and neck that is to be seen in 

 nearly every garden throughout the country, unobtrusively and 

 yet tamely seeking its food, which consists almost wholly of insects, 

 as it progresses over the ground in short jumps, each movement 

 being accompanied by a slight jerk or shuffle of the wings, and 

 hence another local name, Shufflewing. Though on the Continent 

 it regularly migrates, it is one of the. few soft-billed birds that 

 reside throughout the year with us, and is one of the earliest 

 breeders, — its well-known greenish-blue eggs, laid in a warmly- 

 built nest, being recognized by hundreds as among the surest signs 

 of returning spring ; but a second or even a third brood is produced 

 later. The cock has a sweet but rather feeble song ; and the species 

 has long been accounted, though not with accuracy, to be the most 

 common dupe of the CuCKOW. Several other species are assigned to 

 the genus Accentor ; but all, except the Japanese A. rubidus, which is 

 the counterpart of the British Hedge-Sparrow, inhabit more or less 



taken the particulars of the last three birds above mentioned, Parra jacana^ 

 Aramides ypecaha and Vanellus cayennensis, all of them being therein iigured. 



