364 Simmons, The Louisiana Clapper Rail. [july 



specimen; the sign for sex follows; the next four numbers indicate 

 respectively the length, extent of wings, length of wing and length 

 of tail. Date and locality follow. 



In making a disposition of two Texas specimens in 1889,^ Mr. 

 Sennett says: "Two specimens in my collection from Texas, 

 strange as it may seem, are referable only to this form [Rallus 

 longirostris caribceus]; moreover, nothing like it has been taken 

 in Florida, which lies almost in direct line between Texas and the 

 West Indies. There is nothing in this country nor in England as 

 yet to show the forms of Clapper Rail prevailing along the immense 

 line of coast extending between the United States and Cayenne, 

 South America. As it is not the habit of these birds to migrate 

 over great expanses of land or water, it would indicate that the 

 Texas carihoeus found its way thither along the southern coast of 

 the Gulf of Mexico ; therefore it would be only reasonable to expect 

 that we shall find this form along the entire Gulf coast of Mexico 

 and the eastern coast of Central America." 



It is a well known fact that just before his death " Mr. Sennett 

 was contemplating the writing of a book on Texas birds, and in 

 his personal copy of the A. O. U. Check-List he marked the Texas 

 records in a series of initials which show the authority for the record 

 and in most cases the locality. In this index of records he referred 

 all Texas records of Clapper Rails to Rallus crepitans saturatus; 

 his records appear to be three in number: (1) The February 28, 

 1877, record from Galveston; (2) records of the species at Corpus 

 Christi, Texas, during his stay there from April 1 to May 25, 1882; 

 and (3) records of M. A. Frazar "Lower Rio Grande for G. B. 

 Sennett from Jany. '80 to June 1881." By the term "Lower Rio 

 Grande" he probably refers to Corpus Christi as well as to the 

 vicinity of Brownsville, which is the way he used the term in 

 several of his previous papers on birds. 



Mr. Sennett, Capt. B. F. Goss, and Mr. John M. Prior composed 

 the 1882 collecting party at Corpus Christi, and it was on this trip 

 that one of the specimens of the so-called Caribbean Clapper Rail 



1 Sennett, George B. The Clapper Rails of the United States and "West Indies 

 compared with Rallus longirostris of South America. Auk, Vol. VI, 1889, No. 2, 

 p. 164. 



2 March 18, 1900. 



