300 
The Sora Rail 
cliange was at hand, and secured themselves from its influence by a 
prompt movement under night.” 
Now we know that the Rails fly southward after dark. They often 
dash themselves against lighthouses, poles, telegraph-wires, and buildings, 
and one has even been known to impale itself on a barbed-wire fence. 
The little wings, which erstwhile could hardly raise the birds above 
the grass-tops, now carry them high and far. Some cross the seas to 
distant Bermuda, and they occasionally alight on vessels hundreds of 
miles at sea. They have been taken on the western mountains, even as 
high as 12,500 feet; in the sage-brush of the desert, and on the cliffs 
of the Isthmus of Darien. 
Idle food of Rails never has been carefully studied. 
Food We know that they are fond of many kinds of insects 
and worms, and that they eat snails and other sorts of 
aquatic life ; also parts of water-plants. The Sora, like many other 
swamp-birds, feeds largely in autumn on the seeds of wild rice. This 
makes them so fat that they become a dainty morsel for the epicure, and 
are pursued without mercy by market-hunters and “sportsmen” of all 
colors, ages, and classes. In the fresh-water meadows they are some- 
times driven from cover by dogs, and many are shot in this manner. 
Shooting them in their slow, fluttering flight in the daytime is about 
as difficult as hitting a tin can floating down a brook, and a good marks- 
man rarely misses one. The greatest slaughter is perpetrated on the 
tide-water marshes of the Middle Atlantic States, where gunners shoot 
almost anything that flies. When the tide rises high 
enough to allow small boats to float over the marshes, 
boats are poled into every refuge of the poor Rails, 
and, as they seek safety in flight, they are shot down without mercy. 
Hundreds of thousands are thus killed whenever the tide is high. 
The negroes of the South pursue a similar sport at night, blinding the 
birds with torches, and striking them down with poles. This wholesale 
killing has greatly decreased the Sora Rail in New England, but the 
species is very prolific, and is still numerous in many marshes in the 
West and Northwest. 
The draining of lakes and marshes for farming purposes, which 
breaks up their breeding-grounds, will inevitably reduce their numbers 
still more, year by year, so that stringent protection will be necessary to 
maintain the species. 
Classification and Distribution 
Merciless 
Slaughter 
The Sora belongs to the Order Paludicolcr, or marsh-birds. Suborder RalH, 
Family Rallidcc, and Subfamily Ralliiicc, which includes the Rails and Crakes. It 
ranges over most of North America, breeds from central British Columbia, and 
the valleys of the North Saskatchewan and St. Lawrence rivers south to southern 
California, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, and New Jersey; and it winters 
from northern California, Illinois, and South Carolina, to Venezuela and Peru. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon .Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
