232 FEATHERED GAME 
until proven. Let us not trust entirely to the 
rails’ crops for our lead while we may buy else- 
where. The average rail is very well content 
with the ‘‘thatch’’ seed, which is plainly a very 
nutritious food, for the rails on such diet are 
always fat and in good order. 
Rail-like, the Sora flushes only as a last re- 
sort, preferring, if in danger, to run and skulk 
through the grass, and will worm and twist its 
way among the closest-growing stalks with con- 
siderable speed—a proceeding for which the 
shape of its body peculiarly fits it. On the wing 
they are slow and clumsy, flying heavily with 
their long legs hanging, and unless obliged to 
continue their course they will generally drop 
at once into the grass and run a little further 
before hiding, hugging the cover even closer 
at the next attempt to put them up. Yet these 
same birds somehow travel from the mainland 
to Cuba in their migratory flights, which take 
place at night and mostly on the full of the 
moon. 
In New England the rail is almost wholly a 
migrant. It is rarely that any of them brave 
the rigors of our winters, and the few that at- 
tempt it do so only in the southern parts. In 
