520 YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 
related to Gallinula, and especially Porphyrio, is easily known 
at once from them all by the feathered front, common to all 
the species. 
The bill, varying in length, which affords the means of dis- 
tinguishing the two subgenera, is in all the rails more or 
less thick at base, generally straight, and always compressed : 
the upper mandible is furrowed each side, somewhat vaulted 
and curved at tip, its base extending upwards between the 
feathers of the front: the nostrils, placed in the furrow, are 
medial, oblong or longitudinal, open and pervious beneath, and 
covered at base by a membrane (by which conformation they 
differ essentially from the Porphyrios) : the tongue is mode- 
rate, narrow, compressed, entire, acute, fibrous at tip: the 
forehead is feathered: the body very compressed and thin 
flanked. The naked space on the tibia is small, the tarsi 
subequal to the middle toe, somewhat compressed, so as to 
make up for the want of membrane in the analogy to the web- 
footed that other less aquatic wading birds exhibit. We are 
particular in remarking this, for the toes are entirely divided, 
and the decurrent membrane extremely narrow. The hind toe 
equals in length one phalanx of the middle, and is inserted a 
little higher than the others: the nails are short, compressed, 
curved, and acute. ‘The first primary is shorter than the 
fifth ; the second, third, and fourth being the longest. The 
tail is very short, the feathers flaccid, not appearing from be- 
neath the coverts. 
The female is generally, though not always, similar to the 
male, an exception being met with in one of the small 
European species. The young differ much from the adult. 
They moult twice a year. 
The bill of the subgenus fallus (true rails) may be thus 
described: Longer than the head, slender, straight, subequal 
throughout, compressed at base, cylindrical and obtuse at the 
point; upper mandible furrowed beyond the base; nostrils 
more basal, linear. 
In the crakes, of which the present is an example, the bill 
