Rails, Gallinules, Coots 



breast spotted with white; flanks barred slate and white; 

 belly white." (Nuttall.) Bill stout and short (.75 of an inch 

 long). Immature birds have brown breast, no black on head, 

 and a white throat. 



Range — Temperate North America; more abundant on the Atlantic 

 than the Pacific slope. Nests from Kansas, Illinois, and New 

 York northward to Hudson Bay; winters from our southern 

 states to West Indies and northern South America. 



Season — Common summer resident at the north; winter resident 

 south of North Carolina; sometimes in sheltered marshes 

 farther north. 



Where flocks of bobolinks (transformed by a heavy moult into 

 the streaked brown reed birds of the south) congregate to feed 

 upon the wild rice or oats in early autumn, sportsmen bag the 

 soras also by tens of thousands annually, both of these misnamed 

 "ortolans" coming into market in September and October, by 

 which time the sora's pitifully small, thin body has acquired the 

 only fat it ever boasts. "As thin as a rail " at every other season, 

 however, is a most significant expression, yet many people think 

 it is a fence rail that the adage refers to. 



The strongly compressed heads and bodies of all the rail tribe, 

 enabling these birds to thread the maze of aisles among the sedges 

 without causing a blade to quiver and tell the tale of their where- 

 abouts, is almost ludicrous when exposed to view — a rare sight. 

 After one has punted a skiff over the partly submerged grass of 

 their retreats and has waited silent and motionless for endless 

 moments, a dingy little brown, black, and gray bird may walk 

 gingerly out of the reeds, placing one long foot timidly before 

 the other, curling the toes of each foot as it is raised, while 

 with head thrust forward and downward, and with the elevation 

 of the rear end of the body emphasized by the pointed tail that 

 jerks nervously at every step taken, an incarnation of fear moves 

 before you. One old shooter declares he has seen rails swoon and 

 go into fits from fright. 



Food gathered from the surface of the ground is picked off 

 with sharp pecks, but all the rails run up the rushes also, clinging 

 with the help of their hind toes to the swaying stem within reach 

 of the grain hanging in tassels at the top. The long front toes, 

 flattened but scarcely lobed, enable them to swim across a ditch 

 or inlet, and all the rails are good divers. Rather than expose 

 themselves as a target for the gunner, they will cling to submerged 



