RAIL AND RAIL SHOOTING 
191 
the Old Dominion. I have myself killed it in the State of 
Maine, as well as in New York, New Jersey, and Penn¬ 
sylvania, at the marsh of the Aux Canards river, in Canada 
East, and on the head waters of the Lake Huron Rivers. 
In the great wild rice marshes of the St. Clair river, the 
Virginia Rail, like most of the aquatic birds and waders, 
is very common. It is rather more upland in its habits 
than its companion, the Sora, which delights in the wettest 
tide-flowed swamps where the foot of man can scarcely 
tread, being frequently killed by the Snipe-shooter in wet 
inland meadows, which is rarely or never the case with 
the Sora. 
The Virginia Rail is, however, not unfrequently found 
in company with the other on the mud flats of the Dela¬ 
ware, and, with it, is shot from skiff's propelled by a pole 
through the reed beds at high water. 
The Virginia Rail is a pretty bird, measuring about eight 
inches in length j The bill is about an inch long, slightly 
decurved, red at the base and black at the extremity; the 
nostrils linear. The top of the head is dark-brown, with 
a few pale, yellowish streaks; a blackish band extends 
from the base of the bill to the eye, and a large, ash- 
colored spot, commencing above the eye posteriorily, occu¬ 
pies the whole of the cheeks. The throat, breast, and belly, 
so far as to the thighs, which partake the same color, are 
of a rich fulvous red, deepest on the belly. The upper 
parts, back of the neck, scapulars, and rump, are dark 
blackish-brown, irregularly streaked and dashed witli pale 
yellowish-olive. The wing-coverts are bright bay, the 
quills and tail blackish-brown. The vent black, every 
feather margined with white. The legs are red, naked a 
little way up the tibia. It is a very rapid runner, but 
flies heavily. It affords a succulent and highly flavored 
dish, and is accordingly very highly prized, though scarcely 
equal in this respect to its congener, the Sora, which is 
regarded by many persons as the most delicious of all 
game, though for my own part I would postpone it to the 
Canvas-Back, Fuligula valisneria, the Upland Plover, 
Totanus Bartramius ) and the Pinnated Grouse, or Prairie 
Fowl, Tetrao cupido. 
The Sora Rail, Rallus Carolinus, which is more espe¬ 
cially the subject of this paper, is somewhat inferior in 
size to the last species, and is easily distinguished from it 
by the small, round head, and short bill, in which it differs 
from all the rest of its family. This bill is scarcely half 
an inch in length, unusually broad at the base, and taper¬ 
ing regularly to a bluntly rounded point. At the base 
and through nearly the whole length of the lower man¬ 
dible it is pale greenish-yellow, horn-colored at the tip. 
The crown of the head, nape, and shoulders, are of a 
uniform pale olive-brown, with a medial black stripe on 
the crown. The cheeks, throat, and breast, pale rufous 
brown, fading into rufous white on the belly, which is 
mottled with broad transverse gray lines. The back, 
scapulars, wing-coverts, and rump, are olive-brown, 
broadly patched with black, and having many of the 
feathers margined longitudinally with white, the quills 
dark blackish-brown, the tail dark reddish-brown. The 
lower parts from the tail posteriorily to the vent trans¬ 
versely banded with black and white. The legs long and 
slender, bare a short way up the tibia, of a pale greenish 
hue. The iris of the eye is bright chestnut. The male 
bird has several black spots on the neck. 
This bird is migratory in the United States, passing along 
the sea-coast as well as in the interior; a few breed in 
New Jersey, on the Raritan, Passaic, and Hackensack 
rivers; but on the Delaware and its tributaries, which 
abound with wild rice, it is exceedingly abundant, as it is 
also in the great northwestern lakes and rivers which are 
all plentifully supplied with this its favorite food. It is 
rarely killed in New York or to the eastward, though a 
few are found on the flats of the Hudson. It winters for 
the most part to the south of the United States, although 
a few pass the cold season in the tepid swamps and mo¬ 
rasses of Florida and Louisiana. All this is now ascer¬ 
tained beyond doubt, but till within a few years all sorts 
of strange fabulous tales have been in circulation concern¬ 
ing the habits of this bird ; arising from the circumstance 
of its very sudden and mysterious arrival and disappear¬ 
ance on its breeding-grounds, the marshes being one day 
literally alive with them, and the next solitary and de¬ 
serted. Add to this its difficult, short, and laborious flight, 
apparently so inadequate to the performance of migrations 
thousands of miles in length, and it will be easy to con¬ 
ceive that the vulgar, the ignorant, and the prejudiced, 
should have been unable to comprehend the possibility of 
its aerial voyages, and should have endeavored to account 
for their disappearance by insisting that they burrow into 
the mud and become torpid during the winter, as I have 
myself heard men maintain, incredulous and obstinate 
against conviction. Audubon has thought it necessary 
gravely, and at some length, to controvert this absurd 
fallacy, and in doing so has recorded the existence of a 
planter on the James River, in Virginia, who is well con¬ 
vinced that the Sora changes in the autumn into a frog, 
and resumes its wings and plumage in the spring, thus re¬ 
newing the absurd old legend of Gerardus Cambrensis in 
relation to the tree which bears shell-fish called barnacles , 
whence in due season issue barnacle geese. 
The Sora Rail arrives in the Northern States in April or 
May. I saw one killed myself this spring in a deep tide 
marsh on the Salem creek, near Pennsville, in New Jersey, 
on the 25th of the former month, which was in pretty good 
condition. They migrate so far north as to Hudson’s 
Bay, where they arrive early in June, and depart again 
for the south early in the autumn. They breed in May 
and June, making an inartificial nest of dry grass, usually 
in a tussock in the marsh, and laying four or five eggs of 
dirty white, with brown or blackish-white spots. The 
young run as soon as they are hatched, and skulk about 
in the grass like young mice, being covered with black 
down. The Sora Rail is liable to a curious sort of epileptic 
fit, into which it appears to fall in consequence of the 
paroxysms of fear or rage to which it is singularly 
liable. 
The following account of the habits and the method of 
shooting this bird, from Wilson’s great work on the Birds 
of America, is so admirably graphic, truthful, and life¬ 
like, that I prefer transcribing it for my own work on 
Field Sports, into which I copied it entire as incomparably 
superior to any thing I have elsewhere met on the subject, 
to recording it myself with, perhaps, inferior vigor. 
11 Early in August, when the reeds along the shores of 
the Delaware have attained their full growth, the Rail 
resort to them in great numbers, to feed on the seeds of 
this plant, of which they, as well as the Rice-birds, and 
several others, are immoderately fond. These reeds, 
which appear to be the Zizania panicula effusa of Lin¬ 
naeus, and the Zizania clavulosa of Willenden, grow up 
from the soft muddy shores of the tide-water, which are. 
alternately, dry, and covered with four or five feet of 
water. They rise with an erect tapering stem, to the 
height of eight or ten feet, being nearly as thick below as 
a man’s wrist, and cover tracts along the river for many 
acres. The cattle feed on their long, green leaves, witli 
avidity, and wade in after them as far as they dare safely 
venture. They grow up so close together, that except at 
or near high water, a boat can with difficulty make its 
way through among them. The seeds are produced at the 
top of the plant, the blossoms, or male parts, occupying 
