RALLUS RHYTIRHYNCHUS. 149 



371. RALLUS RHYTIRHYNCHUS, VieiU. 

 (BLACK RAIL.) 



Aram ides rhytirhynchus, JSurm. La-Plata Eeise, ii. p. 504 (Parana). Rallus 

 rythyrliynclius, Scl. et Salt). Nomencl. p. 139 ; fid. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 146 

 (Buenos Ayres) et p. 446 ; Hudson, P. Z. S. 1876, p. 104 (Buenos Ayres) ; 

 Dumford, Ibis, 1878, p. 65 (Buenos Ayres) ; White, P. Z. S. 1883, p. 42 

 (Cordova) ; Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 276 (Entrerios). Rallus nigricans, 

 Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 193. 



Description. Above greenish brown ; beneath plumbeous ; bill incurved, 

 greenish, with a blood-red basal spot; feet red: whole length 12*0 inches, 

 wing 5-4, tail 2-8. Female similar. 



Hab. Southern Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, Chili, and Patagonia. 



This Rail differs from the other species in its beak, which is very 

 long and curved, as in the Painted Snipe (Rhynchad), and has three 

 strongly contrasted colours dark green, bright blue, and scarlet at the 

 base. The blue and red tints become very vivid in the love-season. 

 Without being anywhere abundant, the Black Rail is found throughout 

 the Plata Region in every place where reeds and rushes grow. In the 

 marshes along the Plata they are met with quite as frequently in winter 

 as in summer ; this fact surprised me greatly, since I know this species 

 to be migratory, their unmistakable cries being heard overhead every 

 night in spring and autumn, when they are performing their distant 

 journeys. Probably all the birds frequenting the inland marshes on 

 the south-western pampas migrate north in winter, and all those inha- 

 biting the Plata marshes and the Atlantic sea-board, where there is 

 abundant shelter and a higher temperature, remain all the year. On 

 the Rio Negro of Patagonia I found the Black Rail a resident, but the 

 winter of that district is singularly mild ; moreover, the wide expanse 

 of waterless country lying between the Rio Negro and the moist pampa 

 region would make an annual migration from the former place difficult 

 to such a feeble flier. Of this instinct we know at least that it is 

 hereditary ; and it becomes hard to believe that from every one of the 

 reed-beds distributed over the vast country inhabited by this species a 

 little contingent of migrants is drawn away annually to winter else- 

 where, leaving a larger number behind. Such a difference of habit 

 cannot exist among individuals of a species in one locality ; but differ- 

 ences in the migratory as in other instincts, great as this, are found in. 

 races inhabiting widely separated districts. 



It is difficult to flush the Black Rail ; it rises in a weak fluttering 

 manner, the legs dangling down, and, after flying thirty or forty yards, 

 drops again into the reeds. Its language is curious : when alarmed, the 

 bird repeats, at short intervals, a note almost painful from its excessive 



