356 ALECTORIDES. 



to larger and deeper ponds in interior swamps. It has but a single brood in a season, 

 unless the first has been destroyed. Its flight is stronger and more protracted than 

 that of the crepitans, but otherwise resembling it. When suddenly flushed, it rises 

 and goes off with a chm-k, its legs dangling, and proceeds in a straight line for some 

 distance, after which it drops among thick grass and runs off with wonderful speed. 

 Its number is not diminished in winter by any migratory movement. 



j\Ir. ]Moore mentions as a curious fact in the natural history of this species, as well 

 as in that of crepitans and virginianus, and the Porzana caroVma, that it is almost 

 impossible to flush one after the middle of jSTovember, in localities where during the 

 two previous months a dozen or more might be put on wing in a few hours. This 

 bird may then be often heard, but not seen, as at other times, to take wing. 



Two eggs in my collection (Xo. 75), obtained in the Calumet marshes, Illinois, by 

 Eobert Kennicott, have a ground-color of a dead creamy white; they are marked 

 quite sparsely with small spots and blotches of a prevalent oval shape, some being of 

 a purplish-slate color, but the larger portion being dark purplish brown. One egg 

 measures 1.69 inches in length by 1.29 inches in breadth ; the other 1.68 inches by 

 1.25. 



Rallus Beldingi. 



BELDING'S RAIL. 



Rallus Beldingi, Rmcnv. Froc. U. S. Nat. Mus. Vol. 5, 1882, 345. 



Hab. Espiritu Santo Island, Gulf of California. 



Char. Most reseiuhliiig li. elegans. but darker and richer colored throughout, the sides and 

 flanks with the Avhite bars much narrower, and marked also with very distinct blackish bars. 

 Size smaller. Adult male (No. 86419, Espiritu Santo Islands, Lower California, Feb. 1, 1882 ; 

 L. Beldix(t) : Pileuni and iqjjier half of nape dark soot}' l>rown or sepia ; ground-color of other 

 upper parts deep olive-brown (nuicli as in B. virginianus — decidedly darker than in R. elegans), 

 broadly striped with brownish black, about as in R. ohsoletus ; wing-coverts dull chestnut-brown, 

 tinged with olive, the exterior feathers more rusty ; supraloral stripe light cinnamon, the feathers 

 white at base; lores, continunus with a broad stripe behind the eye, dull grayish brown ; under 

 eyelid whitish ; malar n'gion, cheeks, entire foreneck, juguluni, and lireast )ich cinnamon, much 

 deeper than in any of the allied forms ; chin white, throat mixed white and cinnamon, the latter 

 on tips of the feathers ; entire sides and flanks rather dark hair-brown (less olivaceous than upper 

 parts), rather distinctly barred with blackish and very sharply barred with pure white, the bars of 

 the latter color about .((o-.O? of an inch in width ; lining of wing dark brown, with very narrow 

 white bars ; anterior and middle portion of crissum marked much like the flanks, the lateral and 

 terminal lower tail-coverts pure white. Basnl two thirds of the mandible and posterior portion of 

 maxillary tomiuni deep orange ; rest of bill dark horn-brown, the end of the mandible paler ; feet 

 dark horn-brown. 



Wing, 5.70 inches ; tail, 2.50 ; culmen, 2.15 ; depth of bill at base, .50 ; in middle, .30 ; tar- 

 sus, 1.92 ; middle toe, 1.80 



Compared Avith specimens of all the allied species and races of the genus, the 

 present bird is instantly distinguishable by the characters pointed out above. In 

 intensity of coloration it most nearly resembles R. virginianus, but, apart from its 

 much larger size, presents the following differences of coloration : the side of the 

 head below the eye is chiefly cinnamon, whereas this portion is in R. virginianus very 

 distinctly ashy ; the breast, etc., are both deeper and redder cinnamon ; the ground- 

 color of the sides and flanks much paler (uniform black in R. virginianus) ; the black 

 stripes of the upper parts are both narrower and less sharply defined, while the wings 

 are much less rusty. 



