304 Bird - Lore 



A common call, or song, has been rendered ker wee; and the Sora has a 

 high 'whinny;' also notes like peeping chickens. 



The Rail is a bird of mystery. I always feel like putting an interrogation 

 point after the name. About the habits of no other common birds do we 

 know so little. The Sora Rail is one of the most abundant and widely spread 

 birds of North America. It has been slaughtered and sold in the markets by 

 the hundreds of thousands for more than a century. It breeds commonly, 

 even abundantly, over a great part of the United States and Canada; yet 

 most of its habits, and perhaps many of its notes, are still largely its own 

 secret. While floating in a light canoe down the sluggish current of some marsh- 

 bordered river in September, you may watch the Sora silently stealing along 

 the muddy margin, poking things with its short yellow bill, and gently jetting 

 its tail; or, in tramping along the edge of the marsh, you may see one flutter 

 up, just above the grass and reeds, and fly awkwardly with dangling legs 

 across some slimy pool, to drop clumsily out of sight again, as in the accom- 

 panying picture. This is about all the observant traveler ever sees of the 

 bird. Rails are timid, skulking fowls, and pass the greater part 

 of their lives wading under cover of water-plants or squeezing 

 between the grass-stems. They have done this so much that 

 their little bodies have become compressed from side to side, and they can 

 voluntarily shrink in width so as to push their way between stems apparently 

 only half an inch apart. Hence the phrase 'thin as a rail.' Rails make for 

 themselves dark and winding passages among the reeds, grasses, and rushes, 

 along which they may run swiftly to escape four-footed enemies, and at the 

 same time remain concealed from winged foes. They come out into the open 

 when they believe that the coast is clear, with no enemy in sight, or at night, 

 when Hawks are absent. The Black Rail has kept its secrets so well that, 

 although a century has elapsed since Americans began to study ornithology, 

 Arthur T. Wayne, in 1904, was the first person to see the mother-bird on her 

 nest; this was in South Carolina. Perhaps some investigator of the future may 

 build a watch-tower in a marsh and study the habits of the marsh- folk with 

 spy-glasses; but, until something of this sort is undertaken, we are likely 

 to know little of Rails' habits. The curiosity of these birds, however, may 

 become of advantage to the observer, as they have been known to approach 

 a hunter lying in wait for ducks, and peck his clothing, boots, or gun-barrel. 

 A quiet man is to them a wonder, for they are accustomed to associate much 

 noise and movement with aU humankind. 



The Sora nests about the borders of prairie sloughs, in the soft dense 



grasses, or sometimes on a tussock. In the marshes of the East, the nest is 



often placed in a bunch of coarse grass, or among the cattail- 



_ , ^ flags or other rushes. It is sometimes a bulky, arched structure. 



Bulrushes ° - . . , , 



made of weeds, grasses, rushes, etc., sometimes a slight plat- 

 form or a mere shallow basket. It is often set in tall cattails several inches 



