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THE SORA RAIL. 
A slight platform of rushes or a shallow basket of woven cat-tail leaves 
and grasses serves for a nest. A site is chosen anywhere in the swamp, 
but usually in a rather open situation. Sometimes a tussock of grass is used, 
and the growing blades curl over to conceal this anchored ark of bulrushes. 
The Sora is a little more prolific than her cousin the Virginia, a dozen eggs 
being commonly found and fourteen and fifteen not infrequently. In the 
latter case the eggs are apt to be in two layers. ‘The ochraceous cast of the 
ground color is unmistakable, and the spots are both more numerous and 
of a duller brown than those of R. virginianis. 
Taken near Oberlin. Photo by Lynds Jones. 
AN EMPTY NEST. 
Nothing could be at once more interesting and more comical than the 
appearance of a young Sora just out of the shell. He is, to begin with, a ball 
of down as black as jet, and he has a most ridiculous tuft of orange chin 
whiskers. Add to this a bright red protuberance at the base of the upper 
mandible and an air of defiance, and you have a very clown. And such 
precocity! I once came upon a nestful in a secluded spot at the critical time. 
Hearing my distant footsteps most of the brood had taken to their new-found 
heels, leaving two luckless wights in ovo. At my approach one more prison 
door flew open. The absurd fluff-ball rolled out, shook itself, grasped the 
situation, promptly tumbled over the side of the nest, and started to swim 
across a six-foot pool to safety. 
