BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



147 



At the present time the Sora breeds in the Fresh Pond Swamps ; along 

 Beaver Brook just below the Waverley Oaks; at Rock Meadow; at Great 

 Meadow ; and near the Lower Mystic Pond. Like the Virginia Rail, it has 

 increased materially in numbers within the past twenty years, especially in the 

 Fresh Pond Swamps. Here in spring and early summer the two birds occur in 

 close association, and in about equal abundance, among the cattail flags, where 

 they often nest within a few yards of each other. Elsewhere their respective 

 summer haunts are not always quite the same, for the Sora seldom if ever 

 breeds in the briery thickets which are so much affected by the Virginia Rail, 

 while the latter is often nearly or quite absent from the more open, grassy 

 meadows where the Sora especially loves to dwell. 



In autumn both species frequent similar places, but the Sora is much the 

 commoner of the two, especially when the more northern-bred migrants are pass- 

 ing southward. At such times the report of a gun or the splash of a stone 

 thrown into the shallow water among the beds of reeds in which the birds are 

 concealed is sure to be instantly followed by a chorus of keks, kiks, ki-kiks and 

 other similarly abrupt, explosive cries, uttered in tones suggestive of indignant 

 protest and coming from far and near on every hand. Most of these calls are 

 made by young Carolina Rails. The love song of the male Sora, a sweet plain- 

 tive er-e, given with a rising inflection and suggesting the ' scatter call ' of the 

 Quail, is seldom heard later than the first of August, and the silvery, whinnying 

 notes, which the female utters so often in May and June, are equally character- 

 istic of the breeding season. 



53. Porzana noveboracensis (Gmel.). 

 Yellow Rail. 



Rare transient visitor in autumn. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



September 13, 1876, one found dead, Belmont, E. A. and O. Bangs. 

 October 14, 1878, one ' taken, Charles River Marshes, A. L. Danielson. 



There are some reasons for suspecting that the Rails which Nuttall men- 



1 No. 26,678, collection of Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



