BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 137 



PORZANA CAROLINA (Linnaeus) 



SoEA Rail 



Adult Ttiale. — Forehead, lores, anterior malar region to the mid- 

 dorsal and midventral margin of the eye, chin, middle of throat 

 down to breast dull black; narrow superciliaries meeting in a for- 

 ward projecting V on the anteromedian margin of the crown and 

 broadening above and behind the eye ashy gull gray to light neutral 

 gray; middle of crown black, narrowing posteriorly; sides of crown, 

 occiput, and hind neck olive-brown, the feathers of the hind neck 

 with obscure dusky shaft streaks ; interscapulars and scapulars black 

 narrowly margined with white laterally and broadly tipped with 

 buffy olive-brown, the brownish areas also extending laterally be- 

 tween the black centers and the narrow white margins, broadest in 

 the scapulars, less so in the interscapulars ; upper wing coverts bright 

 Saccardo's umber, the inner greater ones with small transverse spots 

 of white, edged proximally and distally with blackish, on the outer 

 web; remiges dull, dusky, olive-brown; feathers of the back and 

 rump black broadly edged and tipped with buffy olive-brown, the 

 black centers very broad and conspicuous on the upper back, nar- 

 rower on the rump ; upper tail coverts and rectrices similar but with 

 the blackish centers reduced to a shaft stripe and duller, less deep 

 blackish than in the more anterior feathers; hind cheeks, auriculars, 

 sides of neck, and throat light neutral gray; breast and upper ab- 

 domen similar but slightly darker; sides and flanks barred with 

 white and brownish olive to dull sepia, the two colors being separated 

 by fine blackish edges of the brown bars (occasionally these black 

 lines broaden out and take up much of the space usually brownish 

 in color) ; middle of lower abdomen white washed with light gull 

 gray ; thighs and vent like the flanks but the white replaced by, or 

 at least heavily tinged with, buffy brown; under tail coverts white 

 more or less tinged with pale buffy brown; under wing coverts like 

 the flanks and sides but with the brown duller, more dusky, and 

 without the black margins to the bars; bill pale yellow to greenish, 

 dark-tipped; iris red or reddish brown; tarsi and toes yellowish 

 green. 



Adult female. — Almost identical with the male, but the inter- 

 scapulars are generally more spotted vsdth white and the black 

 on the head and throat is usually somewhat more restricted.*^ 



"According to Bent (U. S. Nat. Mus. BuU. 135, 1927, 307) males in spring 

 have the black median throat area broader and more continuous than in 

 autumn. This, however, is due to the fact that these feathers, when fresh, 

 have grayish tips, which, in autumn (freshly plumaged) birds would tend to 

 minimize and to break up the black throat area. 



