Reprinted from 
THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
July, 1888. 
ArT. XVIT.—OSTEOLOGY OF PORZANA CAROLINA. 
(THE CAROLINA RAIL.) 
BY R. W. SHUFELDT, M.D., C.M.Z.S. 
As defined by the American Ornithologists’ Union, in our 
Check List, the Order PatupicoL™, containing the Cranes, 
Rails, etc., is primarily divided into two sub-orders, the (1) 
GRUEs or the true Cranes, and (2) the RALLI, containing the 
Rails, Coots and Gallinules, etc. 
The family Rallide occur in this latter group, wherein 
the genus Porzana is well represented by the subject of the 
present memoir,—the common Sora or Carolina Rail. 
A complete account of the osteology of this ralline form 
has never been published, and as its skeleton contains many 
points of interest, to say nothing of importance when we 
come to compare it with other types, I will devote a few 
brief observations to it here. When my material better 
admits of it, it is my intention to quite thoroughly compare 
the anatomy of our several forms of American Cranes and 
Rails. 
OF THE SKULL: .-(Figs. 1, 2 and 3.) Upon lateral view of 
this part of the skeleton in our Sora Rail, we are to observe 
the large sub-oval narial aperture that characterizes it, 
occupying, as it does, nearly the entire area of the side of 
the superior mandible. 
This, taken in connection with the wide interspace be- 
tween the palatines, anteriorly, on the under aspect of the 
skull, reduces the premaxilla (Pm) almost to its minimum 
amount of bony support, and we find its dentary processes 
long slender limbs, while in the medium line above, the 
rather narrow culmen is convex, and nearly straight to the 
tip. Here, for the anterior third of this mandible it slopes 
