2 BULLETIN 128, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



probably maintain their numbers in spite of persecution. The one 

 striking exception is the sora, or Carolina rail, for which a special plea 

 needs to be entered. 



Considered a game bird in many parts of the United States, the 

 sora has rapidly decreased in numbers. Many hunters are fond of 

 the sport of rail shooting, and since each hunter requires a boat and a 

 pusher, the rail-shooting season is an important factor in the total 

 yearly income of a large number of boatmen in the neighborhood of 

 rail marshes. 



The sora was originally the most abundant of the rails, and is still 

 able to care for itself during the breeding season, when it is thinly 

 scattered over an immense area of fresh-water marshes. During 

 migration, however, it betakes itself to tidewater marshes and here 

 falls an easy prey to the hunter. Each high tide forces the bird from 

 its safe retreat in thick grass or bushes and affords the hunter a chance 

 to pursue his game in the open, when the number of sora killed is 

 almost past belief. A long-noted resort for the sora is the flat land 

 near the mouth of the James River, Va. Here at the height of the fall 

 migration in September the reeds used to be fairly alive with count- 

 less thousands of these birds. That their number is now sadly re- 

 duced can easily be understood from the hosts that have been shot on 

 these marshes. Two men in two days, September 15-16, 1881, killed 

 1,235 of the birds, while as many as 3,000 have been shot in a single 

 day on a marsh of hardly 500 acres. In the light of such figures no 

 one need ask what is becoming of the game birds or what is their 

 probable fate. Immediate steps should be taken to decrease the bag 

 limit in order to prevent the destruction of the species. 



The sora is a game bird that should be especially fostered. Its habits 

 are absolutely harmless; it breeds only in places that are not suitable 

 for agricultural purposes; it will live and thrive in marshy spots too 

 small to harbor any other species of game bird; and it is so widely 

 distributed and so capable of adapting itself to a wide range of con- 

 ditions, that if given a fair chance and not too severely harassed 

 during the shooting season, it will survive in abundance as a game bird 

 long after many other species have succumbed before the advance of 

 intensive agriculture. 



While the salt-marsh breeding rails have not been so severely perse- 

 cuted as the sora, they are numerous enough and important enough 

 both for food and sport to warrant more effective protection than has 

 hitherto been afforded them. They should at least be allowed to 

 breed in peace, and robbing their nests should be prohibited. 



A word may be said also in favor of the much despised coot. Many 

 hunters class this bird with the crow as regards edible qualities. 

 However, those who have tasted coot only in winter or spring after 



