RED-NECKED RAIL, 193 
Adult male.—Head, hind-neck, mantle, and entire breast bright chestaut, 
somewhat paler on the sides of the face, and whitish on the chin ; back and scapulars 
olive-brown ; wings, rump, upper tail-coverts and tail dark brown ; bastard-wing 
brown, with whitish spots on the inner webs, and sometimes on the outer webs also ; 
primary-coverts uniform brown ; primary- and secondary-quills brown, with white 
bars on the inner webs and faint traces of bars on the outer webs ; abdomen, lower 
flanks, vent, and under tail-coverts sooty-black with rufous cross-bars, paler and 
inclining to white on the middle of the abdomen ; under wing-coverts and axillaries 
black, barred with white; bill green; iris red; feet slaty-green. Total length 
276 mm.; culmen 34, wing 148, tail 70, tarsus 47. 
Adult female—Similar to the adult male. 
Nestling.—The young, on leaving the egg, are covered with a sooty-black 
down, having a dark, plumbeous tinge on the under-surface. 
Immature.—The young at about five months old have the upper-surface of a 
dull, dark brown tinged with olive, and washed with light rufous-brown on the back 
of the neck ; the under-surface is of a duller and more plumbeous-brown, with a 
faint wash of rufous-brown on the chest and under tail-coverts, which latter have 
two pale rufous bars on each feather; the under-surface of the wings blackish, 
dull brown, a band of white spots near the base, and a similar band about the middle 
of the quill-feathers ; bill olive-brown ; legs greenish-olive ; iris reddish-brown. 
Total length 176 mm. ; culmen 23, wing 92, tail 38, tarsus 51. 
Nest.—Composed of a few leaves and grass and hidden among debris at the 
root of a tree, in a dense part of the scrub. 
Eggs.—Clutch, four ; glossy white; axis 40-38.5 mm., diameter 30-28.5. 
Breeding-season.—January. 
Distribution and forms—North Australia, New Guinea and Aru Islands. Three 
subspecies have been named : 7’. ¢. tricolor (Gray) from the Aru Islands ; 7’. t. grayi 
Mathews from New Guinea, with more numerous and whiter bars on the abdomen 
and flanks ; and 7’. ¢. robinsoni Mathews from Queensland, with a shorter, more 
slender bill, shorter tarsus, less barring on the abdomen and browner back, less 
grey, and darker chest. 
Genus HYPOTANIDIA. 
Hypotenidia Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. xxm., 1852 (? 1853). Type (by original 
designation) : Rallus pectoralis Gould (not Temminck) = Hypotenidia australis Pelzeln. 
Small Rails with rather short stoutish bills, short rounded wings, very short 
tail and stout legs and feet. The bill is longer than the head, fairly stout, the tip 
a little decurved ; the nasal groove is long, more than half the length of the culmen, 
the ridge a little flattened, but not expanded basally into a frontal plate ; the nostrils 
are narrow pervious slits placed about the middle of the nasal groove ; the under 
mandible has a distinct gonys about one-third of its length, an indistinct groove 
being seen along the other two-thirds of the mandibular rami. The culmen is less 
than the length of the tarsus. The wing is short and rounded, the first primary 
being shorter than the seventh, the second usually longest, the succeeding ones 
slowly decreasing ; the secondaries are almost as long as the primaries. The tail 
is short, about two-fifths the length of the wing, the twelve feathers rather soft and 
somewhat pointed, the shape being rounded, the upper tail-coverts about half the 
length of the tail, the under reaching to the tips. The legs are rather stout, scutellated 
in front and behind, a row of smaller scales between the scutes on the sides ; the 
toes rather short, the middle toe longest, the outer and inner notably shorter, and 
practically subequal. The hind-toe rather short, the claw short, the claws of the 
anterior toes longer and little curved. 
Coloration brownish-black above with white spots, superciliary whitish line, 
throat grey, under-surface barred black and white, a red chest-band usually present, 
o 
