408 YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 



only mottled with white ; tertials, or rather scapulars, blackish, very 

 widely bordered each side with different shades of yellowish-ferruginous, 

 of which the palest is outside, and crossed by the two narrow white 

 lines, having besides a rudiment of a third, equidistant ; these scapulars 

 form a whole with the wing-coverts and the feathers of the back, being 

 of the same color, only somewhat more brilliant. Tail very short, fea- 

 thers blackish, each side ferruginous, with the two white lines, but 

 interrupted, and neither at the tip ; the tail is altogether concealed in its 

 upper and lower coverts ; the upper are of the same color, but have 

 only a terminal white band, whilst the inferior are black at base, and 

 with a broad and vividly ferruginous tip. 



This is the most brilliant specimen I have seen, and I must declare 

 that it had all the appearance of being adult. Others did not, how- 

 ever, differ in anything except in having the colors duller and less 

 decided : nor did I notice any difference between the sexes, except a 

 little in size, the female being smaller. According to Vieillot, however, 

 the plumage I have so minutely described could have been only that of 

 the young bird : he states the adult male to be different in color both 

 from the adult female and the young, but as the differences appear to 

 consist more in the language of his imperfect descriptions than in any- 

 thing else, we shall bestow no further notice upon them. 



