RED-NECKED BAIL. 193 



Adult male. Head, hind-neck, mantle, and entire breast bright chestnut, 

 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 : T. t. tricolor (Gray) from the Aru Islands ; T. t. grayi 

 Mathews from New Guinea, with more numerous and whiter bars on the abdomen 

 and flanks ; and T. t. 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 HYPOT^NIDIA. 



Hypoto&nidia Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel, p. xxm., 1852 (? 1853). Type (by original 

 designation) : Rallus pectoralis Gould (not Temminck) = Hypotcenidia 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 

 ] ength 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 



