344 Transactions. — Zoology. 



leaving suflficient of the quills intact to enable their numbers 

 to be counted. 



The bird was an adult of stout build, muscular, though in 

 very lean condition. It outwardly resembled an ordinary 

 cock of good size, inasmuch as there was a fair development 

 of comb and wattles ; nevertheless, partly from its unusual 

 plumage, and otherwise, there was something, not easily de- 

 fined, suggestive of its being a fowl of impure breed. 



As taken out of the preservative fluid, before drying, the 

 ear-coverts were of a dark brownish-black, browny-black, or 

 sooty-brown, as, indeed, were such feathers of the body and of 

 the tail as were left ; the tint varying in different degrees of 

 intensity. When dried, however, the feathers assumed quite 

 a bluish-grey hue, and were remarkably fluffy. 



The bill was proportionally strong, with terminally de- 

 flected mandible, as in the common fowl. The legs likewise 

 were proportionally strong, and scaled ; a stout, short spur 

 existing on both limbs, on the usual situation. The tarso- 

 metatarsal scutes and scales agreed rather with the form and 

 disposition extant in Gallus than in Ocydromus or Rallus : 

 this inasmuch as there was a double row of large, somewhat 

 hexagonal-shaped scales dovetailing in front, and gradually 

 wending outwards distally, so that at the phalangeal end the 

 inner row became medial, and thence singly clothed the long 

 middle anterior toe. Traces only of a feathered leg were ap- 

 parent in this specimen examined by me. 



The rails are distinguished by a more regular delicate 

 scutellation, only a single uniform row of sharply-bordered 

 transverse scales clothing the tarso-metatarse, and the toes 

 are covered with a similar diminutive pattern. There is no 

 leg-spur, and the feet altogether, though long and relatively 

 large for the bird, are much more slender than in the quasi- 

 hybrid under examination. 



Some rough measurements of head and limbs : — 



Inches. 



Occiput to tip of the bill . . . . . . 3'0 



Mouth-angle to tip of the bill . . . , . , 1-4 



Fore angle of nostril to tip of the bill . . . . 0'8 



Length, tarsus to tip of mid-toe, including nail . . 8-3 



„ of anterior middle toe, including nail , . 3-3 



„ „ outer toe, including nail . . 2-1 



„ „ inner toe, including nail .. 1-8 



„ of hind toe (hallux), including nail . . 1'3 



The spur is 0"4in. long, and the same breadth at the base. 

 The relative proportional length of the bill to the head is as 1 

 to 3 in this bird and the fowl ; in Ocydromus it is as 1 to 1, or 

 even longer. 



The feathering throughout (notwithstanding its soft, flufly 

 peculiarity) had a gallinaceous facies, distinctly manifested by 



