Thus 
eve SON BULEETIN 
NO. 75. 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 
VOL. XXIII JUNE, I9II. NO. 2 
OLD SERIES VOL. XXIII, NEW SERIES VOL. XVII. 
NOTES ON CAPTIVE PALUDICOLAE. 
BY ROBERT J. SIM. 
To a naturalist whose home is far from any extensive 
marshes the opportunity to study rail-birds seldom comes. 
Even a month’s stay in the neighborhood of acres and miles 
of swamps may result in only a few glimpses of the birds 
in question. And in such cases the rails are usually on the 
alert. They seem to fancy that danger lurks in every move- 
ment the observer may make. Now imagine trying to study 
intimately the ways of a human being if that person contin- 
ually labored under the impression that his observer was bent 
on killing! 
On April 29, 1907, an adult Sora Rail was brought to me. 
It was alive and in good condition except that one wing was 
a little stiff. Here was a chance to become acquainted with 
a rail and prove to him that there were no evil intentions or 
blunderbusses concealed about my person. He was liberated 
in a large room and provided with a dripping-pan of water, 
some mud, and, just for the sake of old times, a bunch of 
cat-tails. We spent many hours together studying each other. 
The world will never know what has been lost through the 
rail’s inability to keep notes. 
For several hours he skulked in dark corners and always 
succeeded in keeping some object between himself and the 
