BIRDS OF NEW YORK 279 



prised leading her family of 12 or 14 downy black chicks along the sedgy 

 bank of the stream. 



In the fall soras feed largely on the seeds of grasses, especially the 

 wild rice (Zizania) and become fat and well flavored. At this season Sora 

 shooting is much practised on the New Jersey, Delaware and Chesapeake 

 marshes, the gunners being poled at high tide through the flooded coverts. 

 The birds are called rail-birds, sorees and ortolans, the last being the 

 common restaurant name, simply because a Sora, like the Ortolan of Europe, 

 is a small, delicious bird. 



Mr Brewster gives the following account in Bird-Lore, 4, 2, 48: 



In the more open, grassy stretches of meadow, as well as among the 

 beds of cat-tail flags, but seldom, if ever, in thickets of bushes, we also hear, 

 after the middle of April, mingling with the notes of the Virginia rails and 

 the din of countless frogs, the love song of the Carolina rail, a sweet, plain- 

 tive er-e given with a rising inflection and suggesting one of the "scatter 

 calls" of the Quail. Such, at least, is its general effect at distances of from 

 fifty to two or three hvmdred yards, but very near at hand it develops a 

 somewhat harsh or strident quality and sounds more like kd-e, while at the 

 extreme limits of ear range one of the syllables is lost and the other might 

 be easily mistaken for the peep of a Pickering hyla. This note, repeated 

 at short, regular intervals, many times in succession, is one of the most 

 frequent as well as pleasing voices of the marsh in the early morning and 

 just after sunset. It is also given intermittently at all hours of the day, 

 especially in cloudy weather, while it is often continued, practically without 

 cessation, through the entire night. 



Equally characteristic of this season and even more attractive in 

 quality is what has been termed the "whinny" of the Carolina rail. It 

 consists of a dozen or fifteen short whistles as sweet and clear in tone as a 

 silver bell, the first 8 or 10 uttered very rapidly in an evenly descending 

 scale, the remaining ones more deliberately and in a unifomi key. The 

 whole series is often followed by a varying number of harsher, more drawling 

 notes given at rather wide intervals. Although it is probable that the 

 "whinny" is made by both sexes I have actually traced it only to the female. 

 She uses it, apparently, chiefly as a call to her mate, but I have also repeat- 

 edly heard her give it just after I had left the immediate neighborhood of 

 her nest, seemingly as an expression of triumph or rejoicing at the discovery 

 that her eggs had not been molested. When especially anxious for their 

 safety and circling close about the human intruder she often utters a low 

 whinnying murmur closely resembling that which the muskrat makes while 

 pursuing his mate and sometimes a cut-cut-cutta not unlike the song of the 



