204 lewis' AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



article. " The Eail is nine inches long, and fourteen in extent ; 

 bill yellow, blackish towards the point ; stripe down the throat 

 black ; sides of the crown, neck, and upper parts generally olive- 

 brown; streaked with black on a brown-olive ground, and edged 

 with white; wing plain olive-brown; tertials streaked with black 

 and long lines of white ; tail pointed ; dusky olive-brown catered 

 with black ; lower part of the breast marked with semicircular 

 lines of white on a light-ash ground ; belly white ; vent brownish- 

 buff; legs, feet, and naked part of the thighs yellowish-green ; 

 eyes reddish-hazel. The female Bird has little or no black on 

 the head, the throat is white, and the plumage generally is lighter 

 color, and more inclined to olive than in the male." 



HISTORY. 



The first thing to be noticed regarding this Bird are the cir- 

 cumstances which render the term "mysterious" particularly 

 applicable to the species. The regular migrations of the 

 feathered tribes are well known to Naturalists, and the favored 

 time and peculiar conditions under which these voyages from 

 distant parts are consummated by Game Birds have been ob- 

 served by most Sportsmen ; but in the case of the Sora, every 

 one is more or less at a loss, both as to their coming and depart- 

 ure from among us. Whence they come or whither they go, 

 both Naturalist and Sportsman are equally at fault, as each is 

 unwilling to grant that a Bird whose flight is apparently so 

 sluggish and feeble, scarcely rising above the tops of the reeds, 

 should be capable of a long-continued flight, or sufficiently strong 

 to encounter the fatigues of a journey from the far North, like 

 other migratory Birds. Nevertheless, it is an evident fact that 

 Rails must come from a distance;, and when they depart from 

 our rivers, they must also travel to still more remote parts ; if 

 perchance they do not (as has been sagely surmised by some 

 enthusiastic inquirers after truth) bury themselves in the mud 

 of our river banks, or become changed into frogs. But who 

 was ever so fortunate as to dig up a petrified Rail, or come 

 across an unfinished metamorphosis of this description ? Wil- 

 son, however, informs us that this latter theory, as ridiculous as 

 it may seem, had its originator and firm supporter, who boldly 



