£886.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 401 



A second male is smaller, has shorter toes, and many more white bands and mark- 

 ings on its lesser wing-coverts. Testes large and swollen. Females and junior 

 males are smaller in their proportions, have white throats and white wavy marks on 

 the upper wiug-coverts. In old males the throat is as red as the breast, and the 

 wing-coverts have few white marks. The living birds in the cage uttered suppressed 

 notes sounding like "block, block." On the 4th October I procured a bird of the 

 year, which possibly was bred in our neighborhood. 



Immature. — Bill light purplish flesh-color, deep brown on culmeu, and greenish on 

 base of both mandibles; inside of mouth pale flesh-color; iris kiduey-browu ; legs 

 purplish brown, upper parts olive-brown ; upper wiug-coverts tipped with black and 

 •white bars ; throat white ; sides of neck, breast, and sides of belly cream-buft", the 

 rest whitish, obscurely barred on breast, but deeply and distinctly on belly, flanks, 

 and asillaries, with blackish ; tail colored like the hack. 



Button Crake. 



Subgenus COTURNICOPS Bonap. 

 (149) Porzana undulata Tacz. 



1868.— Crex enjthrothorax Dybowski & Parvex, Journ. f. Orn., 186S, p. 338 (wee 



Temm. & SCHLEG., 1849, nee Radde. 1863).— Por^^ana e. Taczanowski, 



Journ. f. Orn., 1873, p. 107. 

 1870. — Ortygometra n. sp. Pkzewalski, Putesch. Ussur. (n. 143). 

 1874.— Porzana undulata Taczanowski, Journ. f. Orn., 1874, p. 333 (descript. ibid., 



1873, p. 107). 

 1875.— Porzana exquisita Swinhoe, Ibis, 1875, p. 135, pi. iii. — Id., Hid., 1876, p. 335. — 



Blakist. & Pryer, Ibis, 1878, p. 22b.— lid., Tr. As. Soc. Jap., tin, 1880, p. 



202.— lid., ibid., x, 1882, p. 123.— Blakist., Amend. List B. Jap., p. 13, (1884). 



The name P. undulata was published by Taczanowski a year before 

 Swinhoe's P. exquisita. It was not accompanied by a description, it is 

 true, but the appellation referred to the description previously given. 

 There was evidently no reason for reprinting the description in connec- 

 tion with the new name, as he expressly quoted the diagnosis already 

 given. 



This exquisite little Crake is especially interesting on account of the 

 very close resemblance it bears to a North American species, viz, P. 

 noveboracensis, belonging as it does to the same sub-genus, and exhibit- 

 ing the same peculiarities of coloration. 



The present species is confined to Southeastern Siberia (Dauriaand 

 Ussuri), Northeastern China, and Japan. 



Measurements. 



Proc. K M. 86- 



-26 



October 30, 1886. 



