446 RAIL-TRIBE. 
their extinction is but a matter of time. The chief characteristics of these birds 
are their long legs, elongated toes, loose and rather hairy plumage, feeble, rounded 
wings, and short tail. The body is generally narrow and laterally compressed, 
enabling them to thread their way among the reeds and grasses with great ease 
and rapidity; while the neck is long, and the head small, with a long or moderate 
pill. A large number of genera, including nearly 180 species, comprise the family, 
but space will only permit mention of some of the more important types. 





















































MALE AND FEMALE CAROLINA RAILS. 
The typical genus, including such well-known forms as the 
common water-rail (Rallus aquaticus), is characterised by the beak 
being longer than the third toe and claw, with the nostrils nearer the feathers at 
the base than the anterior end of the nasal groove. In all the other genera 
mentioned below the bill is shorter than the middle toe and claw. The clapper- 
rail (R. longirostris) is a well-known North American form, with the general 
colour above ashy grey streaked with blackish brown, the chin and throat white, 
fore-neck ashy brown, shading into isabelline on the chest and upper-breast, and 
into whitish on the under-parts, the flanks being barred with greyish brown and 
white. This bird is a resident in many of the south-eastern United States, but 
only met with in the salt-marshes near the Atlantic, unless driven in-shore by high 
True Rails. 
