1886.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 397 



the latter must have been published before 1826 (or 1811), for Her- 

 mann, Obs. Zool.j I, p. 199, as early as 1804, asks, in speaking of his 

 Eallus pabidosus (which is P. parva 2 ) : "An Rallus minutus, PallasiiF 

 However, Professor Bogdanow has proved to my satisfaction (Cousp. Av. 

 Imp. Boss., 1, pp. 54-56) that pusillns is not the bird which formerly 

 was so called (now P. parva Scop.). But, on the other hand, I cannot 

 recognize Baillon's Crake in Pallas's description in his Zoographia. 

 Taczanowski's conjecture (Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 1876, p. 260) that 

 Pallas had before him Porzana undulata is much less tenable. Alto- 

 gether I am inclined to reject Pallas's name for the present, and to 

 adopt, at least provisionally, the first name of undoubted pertinency. 



Were we to follow theplurimorum-auctorum-^T'mc\])\e we should be in 

 a very bad dilemma whether to choose P. bailloni of Vieillot or P. pyg- 

 mcea of Naumann, for we would be able to cite very long lists of au- 

 thors in defense of both. But even when applying the rule of priority 

 we meet with some difficulty in regard to these names. Vieillot's was 

 given in 1819 ; Naumann's is usually quoted as dating from 1838, but 

 he asserts (Naturg. Deutschl., ix, p. 567) that he was the first author 

 to recognize it as a distinct species, and that he described and published 

 it under the above name " more than twenty years ago," consequently 

 before 1818. It is also probable that he is right, for, in 1824, Brehm 

 (Lehrb. Eur. Vog., ii, p. 641) quotes " Gallinula pygmcea jSTauin.," and 

 Temminck, in 1820, says that Naumann was the first to distinguish the 

 species, but he does not give any reference. I have, however, been unable 

 to find Naumann's original publication. 



Fortunately there is an older name, the pertinency of which cannot 

 be doubted in the least, for in 1804 Hermann described the bird in un- 

 mistakable terms as Itallus intermedins. In order to substantiate this 

 assertion I give the following abstracts from his description (Ubserv. 

 Zool., I, 1804, p. 198) : 



Supra fuscus, iufni cinereus, dorso, crisso, hypochondriisque nigria cum apice teciri- 

 ciim fuscarum alho maculatis. 



lutermedium dixi ob colorem ralli aqnatici, rostrum autem ralli porzauae. 



Captus fine Aprilis 1782. Argeutorati ; turn iternm 1789. vere. 



Multo minor porzana, licet rostrum aeque longnm et crassnm eademque forma; 

 Color juguli, pectoris abdominisque cinereus ut in rallo aquatico, sed clarior et magis" 

 coerulescens. Hypoclionrtria uti in isto albo striata, quod in crissi usque apicem 

 continiiatur. Dorsi cum aquatico color idem, nisi quod in medio nigrum sil, sparsasquc 

 viaculas Jiaheat, quce qiwque sunt in tectricibus, nigra irregulariter circumdaias. 



It will be seen that we have here an excellent description of the male 

 of Baillon's Crake. If Pallas's description does not applj' to the present 

 bird no reason can be given for rejecting Hermann's name under the 

 existing rules of zoological nomenclature. 



