MALAYAN ORNITHOLOGY. 191 



for the nearest covert, from which it was not easy to get them 

 up a second time. 



" A female I dissected had the ovaries much developed, stomach 

 very muscular, full of grass-seeds, a fine thread-like weed, and a 

 quantity of sand. 



" Length 1\ inches, tarsus 1 J ; irides red, orbits scarlet ; legs 

 yellowish green, soles yellow ; beak yellowish green, orange at its 

 base ; upper parts, the wings, and tail dull brown, with a plum- 

 beous tinge on the head and neck ; underparts, also a streak under 

 and over the eyes, white ; sides of the neck and breast bluish 

 grey. Another I shot had the irides a reddish brown colour." 



At sunset on any fine evening during September dozens of 

 them were to be seen feeding out in the open on the swamps 

 below Mount Echo, scuttling off in all directions directly they 

 were disturbed. 



Hypot^nioia striata (Linn.). 



This common Water- Rail is apparently more abundant in the 

 south than in the north of the peninsula, as I did not meet 

 with it in Perak, while in Singapore I found it, at all seasons, 

 the most common of all the Kails. I got specimens every day 

 I went Snipe-shooting, their favourite resorts being, very wet 

 swamps covered with low bushes. 



A female I shot on Pulau Batam, on 30th September, 1879, 

 was 10 inches in length, tarsus If; irides dark brown; beak 

 fleshy red, dusky on culmen and tip ; legs dull green. Its 

 stomach contained a quantity of dark-green substance, among 

 which 1 detected the fragments of insects and the shelly covering 

 of a chrysalis of some sort. 



Another female, shot in Singapore 30 September, 1877, was 

 slightly smaller than the above, in other respects similar. Top 

 of head, the nape, and a streak down each side of the neck chest- 

 nut, marked with black on the crown ; the wings and upper 

 parts olive-brown, covered with narrow wavy bars of white, 

 edged with black ; the chin and throat dull white ; a streak below 

 the eye, the sides of the neck, and the breast lead-grey ; abdomen, 

 dull brownish grey barred, particularly on the flanks, with white. 



