Rallina euryzonoides, Lafresnaye. 



Vernacular Names.— [ 



R. JERDON tells us that the haunts, habits and distri- 

 bution of this species in India resemble those of the 

 Ruddy Crake, i.e., that it is found throughout India, is 

 not very common in the south, but more abundant in 

 the north, especially in the well-watered Province of 

 Bengal. 



I believe this to be totally wrong. In the first 

 place, it is almost certain that the Banded Crake is only a cold- 

 weather visitant to our Empire, while the Ruddy Crake is a per- 

 manent resident. In the second place, I do not think that the 

 migration of even stragglers of this species extends to one-third 

 part of India ; it is absolutely unknown in the north, and almost 

 equally so in the well-watered Lower Bengal. 



Rails have been a special study of mine for many years. I 

 have shot in India far and wide. I have for years examined 

 every Rail brought into the Calcutta market during the cold 

 season, and I have never seen a specimen alive. I have searched 

 every Indian local list of birds, and can find no record of its 

 occurrence, beyond the facts that it arrives in large numbers in 

 Ceylon in October ; that Blyth received a specimen from Goom- 

 sur, in the north of the Ganjam district ; and that Hodgson 

 (vide ante, p. 233) procured it in Nepal. To this I can add that 

 I received a specimen from the Assamboo hills in the extreme 

 south of the Peninsula ; that Mr. Brooks gave me a male shot 

 by him in Cawnpore ; that I have examined a pair from near 

 Cuttack, two females shot in Mainpuri and near Lucknow, and 

 a male from near Allahabad, and one specimen (I forget the 

 sex now) caught in a house at Thyetmyo in Upper Pegu.* 



In all the innumerable collections, made in all parts of the 

 country, presented to my museum or sent to me for examination, 



* Blyth, who had received a female from Goomsur, and had apparently only seen a 

 male from Ceylon, concluded that the Continental bird was a different species, which 

 he named amauropiera ; but an examination of three pairs from Upper India, with 

 three from Ceylon and single birds from the Assamboo Hills and Pegu, shows that 

 all clearly belong to the same species. 



