THE OSPEEY. 



15 



The Sora Rail as a Game Bird came into 

 season'' in September. Mr. Bartsch, in his 

 article in the present number of the Osprey, has 

 given some of his experience with it and we 

 add here a readable article on the bird published 

 in the Richmond Dispatch. It gives the sports- 

 man's ideas about its movements. — Editors. 



The Sora season is here now. Nature was 

 benign when she introduced the Sora time to 

 East Virginia. It comes just after the intense 

 heat of summer and just before the Partridge 

 and Hare season begins. As the stereotyped 

 expression has it, "it rills a longfelt want." 

 Then nature never set up a better target for the 

 amateur sportsman than a Sora. The little 

 birds have to be coaxed out of the way far 

 enoug - h to save themselves from being shot all 

 to pieces. They will sit on the grass in the 



marsh and wait for the city hunter to take g 1 



aim; should, perchance, the idea get into their 

 pretty little head-, to fly before tin- boat, tiny do 

 so in such a slow, faltering sort of a way that it 

 looks like a pity to shoot them. But, mirabile 

 dictu, to shoot them and hit them are often dif- 

 ferent things, as many a city and country sports- 

 man has found out. It is a "dead sure thing" 

 that fails. 



Sora are found in the mars es that fringe tin- 

 James, Pamuukey, Mattaponi, Chickahominy 

 and other rivers and streams of tidewater 

 Virginia. They come into the marshes from 

 nobody knows where about September 1 and go 

 to the same locality about I (ctober 15, or as soon 

 as frost comes. The proximity of the marshes 

 to Richmond and the really tine sport of shoot- 

 ing them has made the wilds along the rivet - "I 

 eastern Virginia the Mecca of many Richmond 

 sportmen. There are a number or first-rate 

 shots in Richmond. Every day or so a company 

 of young men and middle aged, who have been 

 practising- on clay pigeons all the summer, come 

 back to the city", after the absence of several 

 days, or even a day. bringing several dozen, 

 even a dozen dozen or more, of the best-tasted 

 birds, when properly cooked, of all those that 

 "cleave the air or dip the wing' beneath the 

 wave." The sportman is shoved through the 

 marsh in a boat by a river man and shoots the 

 birds as he sees them. 



Sora are 75 cents a dozen now. and in a few 

 days, if they continue to increase, will be selling 

 for 50 cents". They hardly ever get lower than 

 this to the housekeeper. 



While the city men hunt Sora for the pleasure 

 there is in it. there is a large company of men 

 Who live along the rivers in eastern Virginia. 

 where the birds are found, to whom the hunting- 

 means hard work, broken rest and a means of 

 earning a livelih 1 for wives ami children. 



The river man rents a marsh if he hasn't one, 

 and when this business arrangement is made he 

 has to secure his lightwood. He has. of course, 

 his boal and his engine. The engine lasts for 

 several years; if well eared for, a lifetime. It is 

 a very different sort of thing from an engine in 

 the common acceptance of the term. It is noth- 

 ing more than an iron rack, elevated on a staff 

 some nine feet. It holds the lightwood. which 

 in turn furnishes the light. It must be recalled 



that Sora are limited for market at night, when 

 the tide is "up" the country people say, or "in," 

 as the town people, who know about tides mainly 

 through the physical geography, put it. The 

 great task of the "soracer" is to get his light- 

 wood. For years and years it has been used; 

 first, before the day of lamps, to make the light 

 upon the family hearth, and now to kindle the 

 splendid wood tires when they are first started 

 of a cold morning, or to brighted it when, 

 through neglect, it has burned low. Now the 

 supply is nearly exhausted, and the soracer has 

 to go miles and miles into the very heart of the 

 primeval forest for the several wagonloads 

 which are required to carry him through the 

 season of about forty-five days. 



Each high water is about an hour later than 

 the one the night before. So. if the soracer 

 goes out at s o'clock to-night, he goes about 8:45 

 or 9 to-morrow night. He is forced to return to 

 the shore as the ebb tide comes and the water 

 leaves the marsh. Most people know that 

 marshes where Sora are found are covered sev- 

 eral feet deep with water at "hi^h water," and 

 are nothing but slick, black mud and tall wild 

 oats, tuckahoe, and cut lemon, when the "tide 

 isoiit." The birds live in the oats and feed on 

 them. The reason in most cases that more Sora 

 are killed to a boat at some times during the 

 season than others is on account of the tides. 

 Sometimes, when the wind is from the west, 

 even the high tide is too low to flood the marshes 

 deep enough for the soracer to shove his boat 

 through the oats and grass. He has to hunt 

 along- the creeks and thoroughfares which 

 traverse the marsh in many places. It is a say- 

 ing often heard in the country, if not in the city, 

 that "slapped" birds are much better than 

 "shot" ones. This is to say that market hun- 

 ter-, of course, do not shoot their game, but kill 

 them with a long paddle — eighteen feet long — 

 with which they shove their boats through the 

 marshes. 



The glowing light from the engine, a torch 

 indeed, eighteen inches square and blazing 

 several feet high, blinds the little birds. They 

 sit. in terror, upon the grass, or swim in and 

 out among the tufts of grass, until the soracer 

 is iir reach. A slight blow from the heavy pad- 

 dle "settles his hash forever," as the country 

 boy says, who goes out with his father for the 

 fun of it. The bird is not bruised, and is much to 

 be preferred to the shot bird, which is often badly 

 torn. The custom is that only one man goes 

 to a boat, but sometimes, particularly with boys 

 and old men, one goes to shove, and the other 

 to shove when he can, and also to "slap." It is 

 not an unusual thing for a soracer to kill nirre 

 or a dozen Sora. when they are plentiful, while 

 his boat is in one place. He stands and slaps 

 the poor little things until his arms are tired. 

 Such a night as this he is apt to kill fifteen or 

 twenty dozen birds, for which he will probably 

 gel a rret price of 30 cents. This does not hap- 

 pen often, and only on very high tides. 



The good soracer makes from $50 to $75 

 in a season lasting from September 1 till Oc- 

 tober 15. 



