104 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



Blue-breasted Banded Rail. 



HypotcBJiidia striata. Kana-koU, Tamil. 



This very pretty bird is also about the size of a snipe, with 

 a distinctly long bill ; the face and under-parts are grey, much 

 as in the Indian water-rail, and the flanks similarly barred with 

 black-and-white, but there is a distinctive point in the cap of 

 chestnut covering the head and running down the neck, and in 

 the broken white pencilling on the brown back. This white 

 marking is wanting in young birds, which also have the cap less 

 richly tinted, but it soon begins to develop. Hens are less richly 

 coloured than cocks. 



Although the bill of this bird is long, it is not so much so as 

 in the Indian water-rail, and is thicker for its length. It is a 

 widely distributed bird in our Empire, except in the North-west, 

 but in the Andamans is represented by a larger race — the so- 

 called Andaman banded rail {Hypotmnidia ohscurior), which is 

 much darker all over, the cap being rather maroon than chestnut, 

 the breast slaty, and the back blacker. 



The banded rail is not quite such a skulker as the water-rail, 

 though it frequents the same sort of grass and mud cover on wet 

 ground, and feeds in a similar way ; now and then four or five 

 birds together may be seen out feeding on turf or grassy banks 

 near the rice fields or wet thickets in the early morning, but 

 commonly they go singly or in pairs. Like button-qnail, they 

 will rise to a dog readily enough the first time, but will risk 

 capture rather than get up again ; and they do not fly many yards 

 in any case. They can swim if put to it, but are not water-birds 

 in the sense that moorhens and some of the crakes are. 



This species is not apparently migratory, though a wide-rang- 

 ing bird, and found throughout south-east Asia to Celebes. It 

 nests at the water's edge in grass, rice, or similar cover, making 

 a pile of rushes and grass, and laying about half a dozen white 

 or pink eggs with reddish and mauve markings of various sizes, 

 chiefly towards the large end. They may be found as early as 

 May, or as late as October. This bird is called Kana-koH in 

 Telugu ; in Burmese Yay-gyet. 



