74 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Olive phase: Like the above but the top of head and the dark 

 centers of the dorsal body feathers blacker— dark fuscous to fuscous- 

 black, and the margins of the latter feathers less brownish, more 

 olive — ^grayish olive with a faint drab tinge. 



Jvwenal (sexes alike). — Much darker than adults above; top of 

 head, hind neck, centers of scapulars, interscapulars, and feathers of 

 upper back, entire feathers of lower back, rump, and upper tail 

 coverts fuscous-black, the margins of the scapulars, interscapulars, 

 and feathers of the upper back dull, ashy, brownish olive ; supraloral 

 stripe less rufescent than in adult; lores, cheeks, and auriculars like 

 crown but washed with cinnamon; chin and upper throat white; 

 lower throat, sides of neck, breast, and upper abdomen pale cinnamon 

 clouded and mottled with grayish drab; middle of upper and all of 

 lower abdomen white washed with pale buff ; sides and flanks grayish 

 drab indistinctly banded with paler mixed with ochraceous-cinna- 

 mon; thighs like lower abdomen anteriorly, like flanks posteriorly. 



Natal down. — Jet black with a greenish gloss above. 



AdMlt male.—Wmg 153.5-170 (161.7) ; tail 68-80 (73.1) ; exposed 

 culmen 55-66 (60.3) ; tarsus 52-61 (56.1) ; middle toe without claw 

 47-56 (51.3 mm.)." 



Adult female.— Wmg 147-161 (151.6) ; tail 60-76 (65.3) ; exposed 

 culmen 49-61 (55.0) ; tarsus 45-63 (51.1) ; middle toe without claw 

 44^51.5 (47.4 mm.). '« 



Range. — Resident in the salt-water marshes of California from 

 Humboldt Bay south to Monterey Bay (Redwood and Point San 

 Mateo, San Mateo County ; San Francisco Bay ; Berkeley ; Bay Farm 

 Island, Alameda County; Alviso and vicinity and Palo Alto, Santa 

 Clara County; Oakland; Marin County; Petaluma; Tomales Bay; 

 etc.) . Accidental on South Farallon Islands. 



Type locality. — San Francisco, Calif, 



Rallus elegans (not of Audubon) Kenneblt, Rep. Pacific R. R. Surv., iv, pt. 

 vi, 1856, 17 (San Francisco, Calif.) ; x, No. 3, 1859 (Whipple Route), 30 

 (San Francisco). — Nbwbeert, Rep. Pacific R. R. Surv., vi, 1857, 96 (San 

 Francisco and San Pablo Bays, Calif.), — Cassin, in Baird, Rep. Pacific 

 R. R. Surv., ix, 1858, 756, part (San Francisco) ; Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. 

 Philadelphia, xiv, 1862, 22 (California). — Heeemann, Rep. Pacific R. R. 

 Surv., X, pt. 6, 1859, 2 (California). — Cooper and SucKLBnr, Rep. Pacific 

 R. R. Surv. xil, pt. 2, 1860, 246 (San Francisco and Humboldt Bays, Calif.). 



Ballus elegans otsoletus Petees. Check-list Birds of World, ii, 1934, 159. 



Rallus elegans, var. ohsoletus Rhwwat, Amer. Nat, viii, No. 2, 1874, 111 (San 

 Francisco, Calif., coU. U. S. Nat. Mus.). — GEiNNBii, Univ. California PubL 

 Zool., xxxviii, 1932, 270 (type loc. ; crit.). 



Ballus elegans . . . var. oisoletus Cottes, Check-list, 1874, App., 137, No. 466a. 



" Twenty-nine specimens. 

 " Twenty-four specimens. 



