850 SYSTEM A TIC SYNOPSIS. - PALUDICOL.E — RALLL 



Suborder RALLI : Hails and Kalliform Birds. 



(FuLicARLE of the B. 0. C — Kalliformes of the KEY, 1884-90. — Ralli of the A. 0. U.^) 



Represeuted in North America by the single fiunily BaUidce, ;uh1 consisting only of this 

 family, with the probable addition of the Heliornithidce, for the remarkable characters of which 

 see ]). 846. Exclusive of these, the characters of the suborder Balli are those of the fauiil 

 Ballklee. 



Family RALLID^: Rails, Crakes, Gallinules, and Coots. 



This is a large and important family, abundantly represented in most parts of the world. 

 They are paludicoline or marsh-inhabiting birds of medium to very small size, generally with 

 compressed body and large strong legs (the muscularity of the thighs is very noticeable), en- 

 abling them to run rapidly and thread with ease the mazes of reedy marshes to which they are 

 almost exclusively confined ; while by means of their long toes they are prevented from sinking 

 in mire or floating vegetation. The wings are never long and pointed as usual in LimicolcB, 

 being in fact of the shortest, most rounded and concave form foundamong Waders ; the flight 

 is rarely protracted to any great distance, except during the extensive migrations which some 

 of the species perform ; and several of the generic types of Rails or Gallinules now existent 

 have lost the use of their wings altogether. The tail is always very short, generally of 10 or 

 12 soft feathers, rarely 14. Details of bill and feet vary with the genera ; but the former is 

 never sensitive at the tip, as it is in Woodcocks, Snipes, and most true Sandpipers, and the 

 hallux is longer and lower down than it is in Shore-birds. Nostrils pervious, of variable shape. 

 Head completely feathered ; general plumage ordinarily of subdued and blended coloration, 

 lacking much of the variegation commonly observed in Shore-birds ; sexes usually alike, and 

 changes of plumage not great with age or season. The fi)od, never probed for in the mud, but 

 gathered from the surface of the ground or water, consists of a variety of aquatic animal and 

 vegetable substances. The nest is a rude structure, placed on the ground, or in a tuft of reeds 

 or other herbage; eggs numerous, generally variegated in color; young hatched clothed, and 

 soon able to shift for themselves, these birds being thus ptilopaedic and prsecocial or nidifugous. 

 The general habit is gregarious, and migratory ; many species occur in vast multitudes, though 

 their skulking ways, and the nature of their resorts, withdraw them from casual observation. 

 Some species swim habitually ; such being Coots, of the subfamily FulicincB. 



More technical characters of the Rail type, especially in comparison with the Crane type 

 of Paludicolce, are found in the holorhinal nasal bones, which are schizorhinal in the true 

 Cranes, and in the notched instead of entire posterior border of the sternum. The plumage 

 is normally aftershafted, and the oil-gland tufted. There are a gall-bladder, long caeca, and 

 two carotids ; the ambiens is present, the formula otherwise A B X Y. The skull is of 

 course schizognathous, and there are no basipterygoids. There appear to be upward of 150 

 species of Ballidre, referred to 50 or more modern genera, and generally divided into 3 sub- 

 families — Rails and Crakes in one, Gallinules in another, and Coots in the third; all three 

 are fairly well represented in this country. But we have none of the strange flightless forms 

 of Rails or Gallinules, to which a wholly exceptional interest attaches in view of the light 

 they throw upon the problem of artificial extermination or natural extinction of birds. Although 

 the ordinary Ralliform birds occur in profusion, some of them dispersed over wide areas, such 

 is not the case with all. The type is an old one, and <ni the whole degenerate, and in a lan- 

 guishing state. Many fossil remains indicate the recent extinction of species of genera still 

 multitudinously represented by living individuals, and of genera more or less nearly related to 



1 Except that the A. O. U. includes under BiiUi the genus Arainus, which belongs to Grues. 



