THE SORA RAIL. We 
No. 199. 
SORA RAIL. 
/ A. O. U. No. 214. Porzana carolina (Linn.). 
Synonyms.—CaroLina Rai; SorA RAIL; SORE. 
Description.—Adult: Above olive-brown varied by black and white in 
spots and stripes on back and scapulars,—the black broad and central, the white 
narrow and marginal; region about base of bill, chin, throat, and median crown- 
stripe black; cheeks behind, sides of throat, and breast bluish ash; below olive- 
brown to dusky, sharply barred with white, whitening on middle of belly ; under 
tail-coverts tawny or tawny-washed; wing-quills fuscous; edge of wing and of 
first primary white; bill yellow, darkening on tip of upper mandible. /immature: 
Without black on head and neck; chin whitish; throat and breast washed with 
light brown. Downy young: Sooty black, the down interspersed sparingly with 
longer glossy black hairs; a tuft of bright orange bristles on throat,—stiff and 
inclined forward; and a bright red excrescence at base of upper mandibie. Length 
8.00-9.50 (203.2-241.3); wing 4.20 (106.7); tail 2.00 (50.8); bill .83 (21.1) ; 
tarsus 1.36 (34.5); middle toe and claw 1.85 (47.). 
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size, but stouter in appearance; marsh- 
skulking habits; short yellowish bill. 
Nest, a raised platform of grasses and sedge, usually placed centrally in 
grass tussock of swamp. Eggs, 8-15, dull buffy or ochraceous-buff (and so darker 
than eggs of Rallis virginanus) ; spotted and dotted with dark brown and with 
purplish shell-markings. Avy. size, 1.24 x .9O (31.5 x 22.9). 
General Range.—Temperate North America, breeding chiefly northward, 
but less commonly on the Pacific Coast. Casually north to southern Greenland. 
South to the West Indies and northern South America. 
Range in Ohio.—Common summer resident and migrant throughout the 
state. Much more common than the preceding species. 
4 
IF a correspondent writes me of a “curious brown bird’? which he “shot 
vesterday in a swamp,” or “picked up this morning under the telegraph 
wires” ; and if he accompanies the letter with a spool-box about a half an inch 
in thickness (O. N. T. preferred) under convoy of two two-cent stamps, I 
confidently expect to find a Sora Rail. Yes, there it is, lying on its side; 
because that is the way a Rail fits most easily into a shallow box. “As thin 
as a Rail” does not refer to the Lincoln variety of split trees, but to this bird 
and his congeners. ‘The birds are bilaterally compressed in order to enable 
them to slip readily between the close-set stalks of vegetation. And _ this 
they do with almost incredible rapidity, and without leaving a wake of motion 
by which their course may be traced. 
Like the King Rail the Sora tises to a dog; or if caught feeding inshore 
some little ways from his watery fastnesses, he flits over the tops of the reeds, 
crops down suddenly, and loses himself immediately in the maze. It is idle 
