270 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Family RA.LLIDAE 



Rails, Gallinules and Coots 



Size medium to small ; body compressed ; head rather small and narrow ; 

 thighs very muscular; legs stout; toes very long, the hallux much longer 

 than in Limicolae and lower down; bill not sensitive, short and somewhat 

 henlike in the crakes, gallinules and coots, but long and slightly curved 

 toward the end in rails proper; nostrils pervious; wings short, rounded 

 and feeble; tail short, of 10 or 12 weak feathers; colors subdued and blended; 

 palate structure schizognathous ; nasals holorhinal; no basipterygoids ; 

 ambiens present, also gall bladder, two carotids and long coeca; plumage 

 aftershafted; oil gland tufted. 



Rails and gallinules are marsh birds, very secretive in habits, keeping 

 well under cover of the dense rushes and grasses, except at night or in the 

 twilight, when they venture out on the muddy shores. When silently 

 floating along the marshy stream, one may often see them standing motion- 

 less near their favorite coverts, or walking deliberately along the margin 

 flirting their upturned tails and bobbing their necks in henlike fashion. 

 Their cries are also loud, and remind one of the different notes of our domestic 

 fowl. Consequently all our species of the family, from the Virginia rail to- 

 the Coot, have received the common name of Mud hens in this part of the 

 country. The flight of rails and gallinules is feeble and hesitating. They 

 usually take wing as a last resort, and then proceed with dangling legs, 

 in a direct course, low over the tops of the rushes, dropping abruptly 

 in a few rods amidst the grass, as if exhausted by their unwonted exertion. 

 They are perfectly at home on the ground, and dart among the dense weeds 

 with marked freedom, the long toes keeping them from sinking in the mud 

 or submerged vegetation, their thin bodies gliding easily between the reeds. 

 The eggs are numerous, oval or elliptical in shape and sparsely spotted; 

 the young are precocial. The food consists of all kinds of aquatic animals, 

 and the seeds and tender shoots of plants. The family numbers about 

 180 members, in all parts of the world. 



This is an ancient family, rich in fossil species, and some insular varieties, 

 like the wekas of New Zealand, are entirely flightless. The family in 



