THE SORA RAIL. 



449 



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. virginianus. 



Taken near Oberlin. 



AN EMPTY NEST. 



Photo by Lynds Jones. 



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. 



