MARSH BIRDS 109 



SORA RAIL 



The Carolina, or Sora, Rail is the most plentiful of the 

 family inhabiting at large the marshes and swamps of the 

 East and Middle West through United States and Can- 

 ada to Hudson Bay, wintering from the Gulf States to 

 northern South America. West of Missouri, Iowa, and 

 Dakota they diminish in numbers and occur erratically. In 

 general structure and appearance the sora is very much like 

 the gallinule. The bill is stout, the toes extremely long, 

 and, though not webbed or lobed, the birds swim readily. 

 The note is a high, rolling whinny, uttered in the ascending 

 scale, which note is taken up by other birds in the marsh and 

 carried for miles. 



They frequently inhabit more inaccessible swamps and 

 marshes than the other rails, though the sora is less timid. 

 They fly awkwardly, with dangling leg, over the marsh, 

 soon dropping into cover. Frequently a sora permits cap- 

 ture on foot rather than expose itself to a gunner by 

 attempting flight. These birds, like the marsh wrens which 

 inhabit the same cover, construct sham nests. They are 

 sociable creatures, as two females sometimes deposit their 

 eggs in the same nest. 



In the Great Lakes region this bird arrives about the 

 middle of April, and the duties of incubation commence as 

 soon as the first egg is laid. The nests are loosely con- 

 structed of bulrushes and grass, well concealed in a clump 

 of rank vegetation. Like the gallinule, the birds have a 

 habit of constructing a little path or runway leading from 

 the nest to the water's edge. 



