1 



272 RALLIDiE, RAILS, ETC. 



Family RALLID^, Rails, etc. 



This is a large and important family, abundantly represented in most parts of 

 the world. They are birds of medinm and small size, generalljr with compressed 

 body and large strong legs (the muscularity of the thighs is verj' noticeable), 

 enabling them to run rapidlj^ and thread with ease the mazes of the reedy marshes 

 to which they are almost exclusively confined ; while by means of their very long 

 toes thej' are prevented from sinking in the mire or the floating vegetation. The 

 wings are never long and pointed as among Limicoke, being in fact of the shortest, 

 most rounded and concave form found among waders ; and the flight is rarely 

 protracted to any great distance. The tail is always very short, generally of 10 or 

 12 soft feathers. Details of the bill and feet vary with the genera ; but the former 

 is never sensitive at the tip, and the latter have the hallux longer and lower down 

 than it is in tlie shore-birds. Tlie nostrils are pervious, of variable shape. The 

 head is completely feathered ; the general plumage is ordinarily of subdued and 

 blended coloration, lacking much of the variegation commonl}' observed in shore- 

 birds ; the sexes are usualljr alike, and the changes of plumage not great with age 

 or season. The food, never probed for in the mud, but gathered from the surface 

 of the ground or water, consists of a variety of aquatic animal and vegetable 

 substances. The nest is a rude structure, placed on the ground, or in a tuft of reeds 

 or other herbage ; the eggs are numerous, generally variegated in color ; the j'oung 

 are hatched clothed. The general habit is gregarious, and migratory ; many species 

 occur in vast multitudes, though their skulking ways, and the nature of their 

 I'esorts, withdraw them from casual observation. Some species swim habitually. 



There appear to be upward of 150 species of the family, falling in several well 

 marked groups. The Ocydroniince are an Old World type of some 35 species, 

 ranking with some authors as a distinct family. Mr. Gray makes the African 

 Ilimcmtornis limmatopus the type and single representative of another subfamily. 

 Excluding the Parridce and IleUornithidcii (seep. 241), both of which are sometimes 

 brought under RaUidcn, as subfamilies, the three remaining groups are represented 

 in this country. 



Suhfamily EALLIN^T:. Rails. 



This is the largest, and central or typical, group, to which most of the foregoing 

 paragraph is especially applicable. The species are strictly paludicolc ; the 

 compression of the body is at a maximum ; the form is blunt and thick behind, 

 with a very short tip-up tail, and tapers to a point in front ; the whole figure being, 

 thus adapted to wedge through narrow places. The wings are extremely short and 

 rounded, and the ordinary flight appears feeble and vacillating, though the migra- 

 tions of many species are verj' extensive. The flank-feathers are commonly 

 enlarged and conspicuously colored ; the thighs are very muscular ; the tibiae are 

 generally if not always naked below ; the toes are long, completely cleft, without 

 lobes or any obvious marginal membranes. The bill occurs under two principal 

 modifications : in Rallus proper it is longer than the head, slender, compressed, 

 slightly curved, long-grooved, with linear nostrils ; in most genera, however, it is 

 shorter or not longer than the head, straight, rather stout, with short broad nasal 

 fossffi, and linear-oblong nostrils — altogether somewhat as in gallinaceous birds. 

 The cnlmen more or less obviously parts autial extension of the frontal feathers, 

 but never forms a frontal shield, as in the coots and gallinules. Of the 35 



