124 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



grass more rapidly, occasionally pausing at some opening to peer 

 about. It was unusual to have them venture more than 2 meters from 

 shelter. In small swamps in Uruguay, where dense shrubbery grew 

 in less than a meter of water, a tangle so heavy as to be almost im- 

 j)enetrable, these rails clambered about among the branches like galli- 

 nules, as much as 2 meters above water. Again, one was flushed from 

 some scant cover of rushes or grass along a ditch through an alfalfa 

 field, or one ran down to the water's edge at some river channel with 

 comparatively high, brush-bordered banks. 



A male taken at General Roca on December 3 and a female shot 

 February 18 at Rio Negro, Uruguay, were breeding. 



Near Tunuyan, Mendoza, toward the end of March, these rails were 

 common, and were evidently in migration from colder regions in 

 Patagonia. Marshes and cienagas were filled with them, while others 

 were encountered in heavy growths of weeds, at the borders of hemp 

 fields (one taken had hemp seed in the throat), or along irrigation 

 ditches. At this time it was common for them when startled to flush 

 from exceptionally heavy cover, almost certain proof that they were 

 migrants, as no resident rail familiar with the runs and passages 

 would think of leaving such excellent hiding places. The flight was 

 rather swift and at times the birds rose 3 or 4 meters in the air. On 

 the wing they appear almost black. 



An adult male shot December 3 had the base of the mandible and 

 the side of the maxilla, below and behind the level of the nostril, 

 madder brown ; small frontal shield and base of mandible yale blue ; 

 center of bill mineral green, shading to dusky green toward tip ; iris 

 slightly darker than ferruginous ; tarsus and toes between coral pink 

 and light coral red; posterior face of tarsus clouded with fuscous. 

 Females taken seemed as brilliant, and birds of both sexes shot in fall 

 were equally bright. 



CRECISCUS MELANOPHAIUS (VieUIot 



Rallus melanophaius Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., vol. 28, 1819, p. 549. 

 (Paraguay.) 



At the Riacho Pilaga, Formosa, an adult female taken in the 

 rushes bordering a lagoon was brought to me on August 8, 1920. 

 The bird was known locally as canastita or in Guarani as batuitui. 



This specimen has the throat, breast, and abdomen pure white, with 

 the barring on the posterior underparts restricted to the flanks and 

 the white bars wider than the dark ones. Four specimens seen from 

 Bahia and Sao Paulo, Brazil, have a reddish wash on the under sur- 

 face with a much broader barred area on sides and flanks, that ex- 

 tends over on the abdomen, where the dark bars are wider than the 

 white ones. 



