Mexico, Central America, and Smdli America. 19 

 IG. Note on licdlus longirostris, Boddaert. 



I received a specimen of Eallus in a collection from Baliia, 

 which I was unable to determine and was inclined to consider 

 undescribed ; from the stoutness of its bill, I named it pro- 

 visionally B. crassirostris. In 1868 Messrs. Sclater and 

 Salvin gave a most valuable and complete " Synopsis of the 

 American Rails" (Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 442). Not being able 

 to make it agree satisfactorily with any of the species therein 

 enumerated, and an opportunity offering to send it to them, 

 as they had lately so fully investigated the Rallidse, I did so. 



On returning it, Mr. Sclater wrote, "is true loiigirodris, 

 figured PI. Enl. 849." I infer from this (although not dis- 

 tinctly so stated) that they consider it different from crepitans : 

 the two birds are very unlike, and no one with the two before 

 him could confound them. If right in my inference, this 

 would be a change of opinion since the publication of the 

 Synopsis, wherein c^repitans is put as a synonym of longirostris ; 

 this view has also been taken by other recent writers, adopting 

 Mr. Cassin's suggestion of their probable identity. 



I find it agrees with Buffbn's plate (which is of reduced size) 

 in the apparent color of the back, also in the form and stout- 

 ness of the bill ; but they differ in the coloring below, which in 

 the plate is more like crepitans, being of an ashy-fulvous, 

 instead of uniform light rufous; they differ also in the bars 

 on the flanks. The only characters, then, on which it can 

 assume the name of longirostris, are the shape of the bill and 

 the color of the back, if these are deemed sufficient to overrule 

 the coloring below, in which the plate resembles crepitans. 



My specimen differed so much from crepitans, as well as from 

 all others, that I considered it undescribed at the time, taking 

 for a settled fact that crepitans and longirostris were the same ; 

 if the Bahia bird is to take the name of longirostris, it being 

 certainly distinct from crepitans, the latter name must be 

 restored to full specific rank. 



