234 RAILS, GALLINULES, AND COOTS 



the floating leaves of the water plants, using both wings and feet, or 

 rise with feebly fluttering wings and hanging legs to fly only a few 

 rods before dropping beyond some intervening screen of grass or bushes. 

 In any case you are not likely to find him again on this occasion. 



Besides the grunting sound, the Virginia Rail utters during the 

 breeding season, especially at night and in lowering weather, a gut- 

 tural cut, cutta-cutta-cutta, often repeated at brief intervals for hours 

 in succession. This cry appears to be peculiar to the male, and is, no 

 doubt, his love-song. When heard at a distance of only a few yards it 

 has a vibrating, almost unearthly, quality, and seems to issue from the 

 ground directly beneath one's feet. The female, when anxious about 

 her eggs or young, calls ki-ki-ki in low tones, and kiu much like a 

 Flicker. The young of both sexes in autumn give, when startled, a 

 short, explosive kep or kik, closely similar to that of the Carolina Rail. 



WILLIAM BBEWSTEK, 



214. Porzana Carolina (Linn.). SORA. (Fig. 39c.) Ad. Region 

 about the base of the bill, center of crown, and a line down the middle of the 

 neck black; rest of the breast and throat, sides of the head, and front part 

 of the crown pale blue-gray; rest of the upperparts olive-brown, most of the 

 feathers with black centers, the scapulars and back streaked on each side 

 with white; wings fuscous-brown, their coverts grayish cinnamon, outer 

 edge of first primary white; lower belly white, flanks barred with black and 

 white. Im. Similar, but without black at the base of the bill or on the 

 throat; breast washed with cinnamon and upperparts darker. L., 8'50; 

 W., 4'30; Tar., 1'30; B., '80. 



Range. N. A. Breeds from cen. B. C., s. Mackenzie, cen. Keewatin, 

 and Gulf of St. Lawrence s. to s. Calif., Utah, Colo., Kans., Ills., and N. J.; 

 winters from n. Calif., Ills., and S. C. through the West Indies and Cen. Am. 

 to Venezuela and Peru; accidental in Bermuda, Greenland and England. 



Washington, common T. V., Mch.-May; July-Nov. Long Island, com- 

 mon T. V., Apl. and May; Aug.-Oct. ; rare S. R. Ossining, common T. V. May; 

 Aug. 19-Oct. 24. Cambridge, locally abundant S. R., Apl. 15-Oct. 31. N. 

 Ohio, common S. R., May 1-Oct. 23. Glen Ellyn, tolerably common S. R., 

 Apl. 14-Oct. 17. SE. Minn., common S. R., Apl. 25-Dec. 5. 



Nest, of grasses, on the ground in or near marshes. Eggs, 8-15, buffy 

 white or ochraceous-buff, spotted and speckled with rufous-brown, 1'24 x 

 *90. Date, Cambridge, May 20; se. Minn., June 3; Pewaukee, Wise., 

 May 19. 



The Soras' summer home is in fresh-water marshes, where, if it 

 were not for their notes, the reeds and grasses would long keep the 

 secret of their presence. But knowing their calls, you have only to 

 pass a May or June evening near a marsh to learn whether they in- 

 habit it. If there, they will greet you late in the afternoon with a clear 

 whistled ker-wee, which soon comes from dozens of invisible birds 

 about you, and long after night has fallen it continues like a spring- 

 time chorus of piping hylas. Now and again it is interrupted by a 

 high-voiced, rolling whinny which, like a call of alarm, is taken up and 

 repeated by different birds all over the marsh. 



They seem so absorbed by their musical devotions that even when 

 calling continuously it requires endless patience and keen eyes to see 



