The Sora Rail 299 



of weeds, grasses, rushes, etc. ; sometimes a slight platform, or a mere 

 shallow basket. Often it is hung among cattails, several inches clear of 

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

 and all are screened by the over-arching flags, and, occasionally, one is 

 found in a tussock on the bank of a brook. The eggs vary from six to 

 fifteen in number, and are buffy white, but deeper in shade than those of 

 the Virginia Rail, and 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 fascinating and supremely comical mites little balls of down, black 

 as jet, each with a bright-red protuberance at the base of the bill, and an 

 air of pert defiance. It 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 ap- 

 proach 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 sometimes dive, favored this delusion ; also, the sudden dis- 

 appearance of all the Soras on a frosty night seemed suspicious. Some 

 still, moonlit night, after a north wind, the Rails van- 

 ished ; on the next morning ice covered the marshes, so Migratory 

 the explanation that they had dived to escape the ice 

 gained credence. Audubon alluded to this matter in the following pas- 

 sage in Volume V of his Birds of America : 



"The most curious habit or instinct of this species is the nicety of 

 ensr by which they ascertain the last moment they can remain at any of 

 their feeding grounds at which they tarry in autumn. One .day you may 

 see or hear Soras in their favorite marshes, you may be aware of their 

 presence in the dusk of the evening ; but when you return to the place 

 early next morning they are all gone. Yesterday the weather was mild, 

 to-day it is cold and raw ; and no doubt the Soras were aware that a 



