Malayan Ornithology. 189 



"Today T got some Snipe {Gallinago stemira), Bitterns 

 {Ardettn cinnamomea) , Golden Plover {Charadrius fulvus), 

 and several small Rails [Porzana cinerea) ; these last were 

 very plentiful in the deepest parts of the swamp, and nearly 

 every bush held one. When flushed they flew with a weak 

 flight, with their long legs trailing behind them_, for about 

 fifty yards, then dropped and ran for the nearest covert, from 

 which it was not easy to get them up a second time. 



" A female I dissected had the ovaries much developed, 

 stomach very muscular, full of grass-seeds, a fine thread-like 

 weed, and a quantity of sand. 



'^Length 7^ inches, tarsus 1|; irides red, orbits scarlet; 

 legs yellowish green, soles yellow ; beak yellowish green, 

 orange at its base; upper parts, the wings, and tail dull 

 brown, with a plumbeous tinge on the head and neck ; under- 

 parts, also a streak under and over the eyes, white ; sides of 

 the neck and breast bluish grey. Another I shot had the 

 irides a reddish brown colour.'^ 



At sunset on any fine evening during September dozens of 

 them were to be seen feeding out in the open on the swamps 

 below Mount Echo, scuttling off" in all directions directly they 

 were disturbed. 



Hypot^nidia striata (Linn.). 



This common Water-Rail is apparently more abundant in 

 the south than in the north of the peninsula, as I did not 

 meet with it in Perak, while in Singapore I found it, at all 

 seasons, the most common of all the Rails. I got specimens 

 every day I went Snipe-shooting, their favourite resorts being 

 very wet swamps covered with low bushes. 



A female I shot on Palo Battam, on 30th September 1879, 

 was 10 inches in length, tarsus 1| ; irides dark brown ; beak 

 fleshy red, dusky on culmen and tip ; legs dull green. Its 

 stomach contained a quantity of dark-green substance, among 

 which I detected the fragments of insects and the shelly cover- 

 ing of a chrysalis of some sort. 



■ Another female, shot in Singapore 30th September 1877, 

 was slightly smaller than the above, in other respects similar. 



