RALLIDiE. 533 



Family RALLID^E, or RAILS. 



The Rails are a fairly well-defined group of birds. Sclater places them 

 in an Order by themselves between the Hemipodes and the Cranes and 

 Bustards j but Forbes removed them from the vicmity of the Cranes, and 

 associated them with the Bustards and the Stone-Curlews, in a group 

 which comprised also the Game Birds and the Cuckoos; whilst Gadow 

 places them near the Cranes. 



The Rails resemble the Herons and the Storks in having one deep notch 

 on each side of the sternum, but in the modification of their cranial bones 

 they do not belong to the same great group, being placed by Huxley 

 near the Cranes, the Bustards, the Sandpipers, and other schizognathous 

 birds. This position appears to be confirmed by their pterylosis, myology, 

 and digestive organs, in all of which they show very close relationship to 

 the Cranes and Bustards. 



Amongst the Rails, as in the Game Birds, genera are to be found the 

 birds of which only moult once in the year, whilst others have a spring as 

 well as an autumn moult. To the former group, so far as is known, belong 

 the true Rails, the Waterhens, and the Coots, that moult only in autumn, 

 and attain their spring plumage by casting the ends of the feathers, which 

 may also increase in brilliancy of colour without being moulted. To the 

 latter group belong the Crakes, the Palsearctic species of which have a 

 spring as well as an autumn moult. 



The principal external characters of the Rails are their large feet (the 

 hind toe being slightly elevated), comparatively short tarsus, short stout 

 beak, and rounded wings and short tail (the former containing ten primaries 

 and the latter composed of twelve feathers) . The young of the Rails, like 

 those of many other birds that breed on the ground, are covered with down 

 when they are hatched, and are able to run almost immediately. 



There are about 150 species of Rails, which are found throughout the 

 world, except in the Ai-ctic Region. Nine species breed in Europe, and 

 two others are occasional stragglers to that continent ; of these seven are 

 British. 



Genus CEEX. 



The Crakes were included by Linnaeus in his genus Rallus, from which 

 Bechstein in 1803, in his ' Ornithologisches Taschenbuch' (ii. p. 336), 

 removed the Com-Crake (the Rallus crex of Linnseus), making it the type 

 of a new genus, Crex. 



