346 Notes on the Breeding of the Ypecaha Rail.


not know what took place, but my man tells me both birds were

exceptionally shy and retiring during this time, and seldom

showed themselves ; on July 4th, on looking into the nest, he

found one of the eggs was on the point of hatching, the egg was

chipped and he could hear the young bird cheeping inside it ;

three of the eggs hatched and the fourth was rotten ; apparently

two of the eggs hatched a little time before the third, as on July

6tli, on going into the cage, two young Rails, evidently a day or

two old, were found lying dead under a tree at the far end of the

aviary, and the third, and only living one, lying just hatched in

the nest, and it looks to me as though the two young birds which

had hatched first, had got out of the nest and perished, probably

from want of attention. The little Rails when first hatched very

much resemble a baby Water hen, and are covered with black

down on the body, the head and neck being quite light brown

colour, legs and beak black.


I was again away from home for a week or two after they

had hatched and on returning found the young Rail had grown

into a very fine strong young bird, with feathers beginning to

show all over it, and the commencement of a funuv little stumpy

tail which it was always jerking about when it walked ; it still

appeared to be black all over and its legs looked very long and

out of proportion to the rest of its body ; now, on August

16th, it is full grown and beginning to look quite olive green

on the back ; it is tamer than the old birds ; does not slink

into cover directly one approaches, and is very fond of wading

about the little water pool in the aviary and probing in the grass

with its bill : if alarmed it will run behind a stump, looking out

first from one side and then from the other, generally standing on

one leg. Its parents seem to pay it no attention at all and keep

quite to themselves, and the young Rail generally seems to prefer

the company of a Knot and an Australian Plover, and on one

occasion I saw it feeding, very complacently, out of the same

dish as a Himalayan Jay was pecking from.


I shall be very glad to hear if any one knows whether the

Ypecaha Rail has been bred before in captivity.



