518 YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. (Rallus noveboracensis.) 
PLATE XXVII.—Fic. 2. 
Gallinula noveboracensis, Lath. Ind. ii. p. 771, sp. 16.—Fulica noveboracensis, 
Gmel. Syst. i. p. 701, sp. 15.—Rallus Ruficollis, Viewl/. Gal. Oits. ii. p. 168, 
pl. 266 (a bad figure).—Rallus noveboracensis, WVob. Cat. Birds U. S.; Id. 
Syn. sp. 273; Id. Sp. comp. sp. Phil. 212.—Perdix Hudsonica? Lath. Ind. 
il. p. 655, sp. 41.—Le Rale varié a gorge rousse, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. xviii. p. 
556.—Yellow-breasted Gallinule, Lath. Syn. iii. p. 262, sp. 15; Id. Gen. 
Hist. ix. p. 419, sp. 30.—Penn. Arct. Zoel. ii. sp. 410.—Hudsonian Quail? 
Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. 224 ; Id. Gen. Hist. viii. p. 330, sp. 72.—American 
Museum at New York. 
THE genus rail, and that of the gallinules, are so closely re- 
lated, that many authors have either confounded them together, 
or by their various definitions and acceptations made them to 
interfere with each other. hus, for Latham, T’emminck, and 
others, the short-billed rails, among which ranks the present 
species, are gallinules, although they want that obvious char- 
acter upon which Linné founded his natural, though too much 
extended, group Fulica, and which we also, with Vieillot and 
others, adopt as its best representative character, namely, the 
naked frontal clypeus. ‘The genus rail is therefore very com- 
prehensive and numerous in species, which are spread over all 
the globe, and may with propriety be divided into two sub- 
eenera or groups, the first of which will contain the long-billed 
species, under the more restricted name of allus, containing 
the true Rallz of all authors, whilst the name Ovex, or rather 
Porzana or Ortygometra, may be consecrated to the short- 
billed rails, improperly ranked by authors with the gallinules. 
I say rather Porzana or Ortygometra, because the name Crex 
might be reserved for a secondary group, instituted for the 
corncrake alone (fallus crex, L.),a European bird, whose dry- 
land habits, so different from those of its congeners, have, 
with apparent propriety, induced Bechstein and others to ele- 
vate it to the rank of a full genus. Its land habits are so 
peculiar, resembling more those of gallinaceous birds than of 
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