The Sora Rail 30S 



clear of the water, with a pathway of trampled blades leading to it, while nest 

 and all are screened by the overarching flags; and occasionally one is found in 

 a tussock on the bank of a brook. The eggs vary from six to fifteen in number, 

 are buffy white, but deeper in shade than those of the Virginia Rail, and are 

 heavily spotted with brown and purple. 



Nelson says that the parents desert their nests and break their eggs when 

 floods submerge their homes. The young Rails just from the egg are fascina- 

 ting and supremely comical mites. Little balls of down, black as 

 omica j^^^ ^^^j^ j^^g ^ bright red protuberance at the base of the bill, 



and an air of pert defiance — is a very clown! So says Dawson 

 who came upon a brood just hatching. All took to their heels except two 

 luckless wights not yet out of the egg. At his approach, one more egg flew 

 open, and a little black rascal rolled out, shook its natal coat, tumbled off the 

 nest, and started to swim off to safety. 



The young of this bird have often been mistaken for those of the little 

 Black Rail. They are certainly both small and sable. When they once leave 

 the nest, they are constantly in danger. Most of the larger animals and birds 

 of the marshes, from the Sandhill Crane down to the mink, devour the eggs 

 and young of Rails wherever they find them. In the water, snakes, frogs, fish, 

 and turtles lie constantly in wait to swallow them. They soon become experts 

 in climbing and hiding. They can clamber up and down the water-plants, or 

 run through them over the water by clinging to the upright stems. They 

 swim more like a chicken than like a duck, nodding their little heads comically 

 as they advance. Necessity soon teaches them to drop into the water and 

 dive like a stone to safety. 



As the autumn nights grow cooler, migration begins. The ancients believed 

 that the Rails passed the winter in the mud at the bottom of ponds, changing 

 into frogs. Their frog-like notes and the chug with which they 

 Migration sometimes dive favored this delusion; also the sudden disap- 



pearance of all the Soras on a frosty night seemed suspicious. 

 Some still moonlit night, after a north wind, the Rails disappeared; on the 

 next morning, ice covered the marshes; so the explanation that they had 

 dived to escape the ice gained credence. Now we know that they fly southward 

 after dark. They often dash themselves against lighthouses, poles, wires, 

 and buildings, and one has even been known to impale itself on a barbed-wire 

 fence. The little wings which erstwhile would hardly raise the birds above 

 the grass-tops now carry them high and far. Some cross the seas to distant 

 Bermuda, and they occasionally alight on vessels hundreds of miles at sea. 

 They have been taken on the western mountains even as high as 12,500 feet, 



in the sage-brush of the desert, and on the cliffs of Panama. 

 Its Food The food of Rails never has been carefully studied. We 



know that they are fond of many kinds of insects and worms, 

 and that they eat snails and other kinds of aquatic life; also the seeds 



