1 





Porzana bicolor, Walden. 



Vernacular ITames.— [ ? ] 



T the close of 1870 I picked out a bird of this species 

 from a collection that had been made in Sikhim 

 by Captain H. J. Elwes. I felt sure that the bird was 

 undescribed, but had no books to consult, so deferred 

 describing it until I rejoined my head-quarters. 

 Uufortunately the box containing this and numer- 

 ous valuable skins from Assam was mislaid and 

 never turned up for years, when it was found amongst other 

 property in the Agra Customs House. 



In the meantime, I received a second specimen from Mr. 

 Mandelli, and at once described it, naming it after its discoverer, 

 Captain Elwes. I sent the description to the Ibis, but the Editor, 

 instead of publishing it, put it aside for seven or eight months, and 

 only remembered it when Lord Walden, who in the meantime 

 had received a third specimen, described it under the name 

 " bicolor." Thus the name of the real discoverer was lost sight 

 of, and it is only in the trivial name that this can now be 

 preserved. 



Little is as yet known of its distribution. Numerous specimens 

 have now been obtained in Sikhim, and again in the neighbour- 

 hood of Shillong on the Khasi Hills, where Godwin-Austen was 

 the first to find it ; but it has not been met with elsewhere, though 

 it will doubtless prove to extend in suitable localities through- 

 out the hills bounding the valley of Assam on the north and 

 south. 



Small marshy pools and swamps and irrigated rice fields 

 (in Sikhim much of the rice is dry), at elevations of from four 

 to fully six thousand feet, are the situations in which all recorded 

 specimens have been found. They have all been killed during 

 the summer, and I should expect that during the cold season 

 this species either retreats to the Tarai, Duars, and similar places 

 in the valley of Assam, or that it moves further east. 



Nothing is known of its habits, but the contents of the 

 stomach of one specimen are noticed as " insects, grain and gravel," 



