762 RACE-HORSE—RATL 
R 
RACE-HORSE, a name applied by seamen to the Loccsr- 
HEAD Duck (p. 518) for more than a century, but of late years 
superseded by that of Steamer-Duck. 
RACQUET-TAIL, a name given to several of the Mormors, 
and by Gould to Humminc-Birps of the genus Spathura. 
24 DIUS, the straighter and more slender of the two bones of 
the forearm (the other being the ULNA). Its proximal end forms a 
shallow cup for articulation with the outer condyle of the HUMERUS, 
while the distal end bears a knob which fits into the radial bone 
of the CARPUS. 
LAFTER-BIRD, a local name of the Spotted FLYCATCHER. 
RAIL (German Jealle, French Jtdle, Low Latin Lallus), origin- 
ally the English name of two birds, distinguished from one another 
by a prefix as Land-Rail and Water-Rail, but latterly applied in a 
much wider sense to all the species which are included in the 
Family Rallide. 
The LANpD-RaIL, also very commonly known as the Corn-Crake, 
and sometimes as the Daker-Hen, is the Rallus crex of Linneus 
and Crea pratensis of later authors. Its monotonous grating cry, 
which has given it its common name in several languages, is a 
familiar sound throughout the summer-nights in many parts of 
the British Islands; but the bird at that season very seldom shews 
itself, except when the mower lays bare its nest, the owner of 
which, if it escape beheading by the scythe, may be seen for an 
instant before it disappears into the friendly covert of the still- 
standing grass. In early autumn the partridge-shooter not un- 
frequently flushes it from a clover-field or tangled hedgerow ; and, 
as it rises with apparent labour and slowly flies away to drop into 
the next place of concealment, if it fall not to his gun, he wonders 
how so weak-winged a creature can ever make its way to the 
shores if not to the interior of Africa, whither it is almost certainly 
bound; for, with comparatively few individual exceptions, the 
Land-Rail is essentially migratory—nay more than that, it is the 
Ortygometra of classical authors—supposed by them to lead the 
QUAIL on its voyages—and in the course of its wanderings has now 
been known to reach the coast of Greenland, and several times that 
of North America, to say nothing of Bermuda, in every instance we 
may believe as a straggler from Europe or Barbary. An example has 
even been recorded from New South Wales (Jtec. Austral. Mus. ii. 
