The Sora Rail 



swamp, but usually in a rather open situation. Sometimes a tussock of 



grass is used, and the growing blades curl over to conceal this anchored 



ark of bulrushes. The Sora is a little more prolific than her cousin, the 



Virginia, a dozen eggs being commonly found, and fourteen 



and fifteen not infrequently. In the latter 



case the eggs are apt to be in two layers. 



The ochraceous cast 



of the ground-color is 



unmistakable, and the 



spots are both more 



numerous and of a 



duller brown than 



those of R. virgini- 



anus. 



Nothing could be 

 at once more interest- 

 ing and more comical 

 than the appearance 

 of a young Sora just 

 out of the shell. He 

 is, to begin with, a ball 

 of down as black as 

 jet, and he has a most 

 ridiculous tuft of 



orange chin whiskers. Add to this a bright red protuberance at the base of 

 the upper mandible and an air of defiance, and you have a very clown. 

 And such precocity! Once, in a secluded spot, I came upon a nestful at 

 the critical time. Hearing my distant footsteps most of the brood had 

 taken to their new-found heels, leaving two luckless wights in ova. At 

 my approach one more prison door flew open. The absurd fluff-ball rolled 

 out, shook itself, grasped the situation, promptly tumbled over the side 

 of the nest, and started to swim across a six-foot pool to safety. 



A lifetime of prowling in the swamps will not give a person any ade- 

 quate conception of the total number of Sora Rails. From the migrations, 

 however, we are able to guess that it must be enormous. During the mi- 

 grations, which take place at night, the birds straggle over the landscape 

 at low elevation and quite irrespective of the fly-lines observed by many 

 other species. As a consequence, many Soras fall victim to telephone wires 

 or even barb-wire fences; and not a few are picked up in town in the street 

 or in the garden, or wherever dawn has overtaken the weary traveler. 

 Such an occurrence affords the man on the street his only glimpse of this 

 pixy of the marshes, which makes appeal alike for its oddity and for its 



Taken in San Diego 



Photo by L. Huey and D. R. Dickey 

 SORA RAIL: A "HAND-PICKED" SPECIMEN 



'543 



