Top of the head and all upper surfaces olive, many of the leathers having blackish-brown centres, and 

 the outer edges of the feathers barred brown, and white, on the neck and back, giving a flecked appearance; 

 primaries, dark brown, two outer ones crossed by narrow bars of white, and the remainder with broad bars 

 of cinnamon red : throat and neck, grey ; chin and stripe over the eye, whitish-grey; at the base of the bill 

 a broad stripe of red sienna begins, passes through the eye, and unites at the occiput; all under surfaces, 

 brownish -black, crossed by narrow well-defined bars of greyish-white; on the breast a red sienna patch; 

 thighs and vent, bull'; under tail-coverts, black, barred with white and tipped with buff; bill, red at the 

 base, passing into brown at the tip ; irides, reddish-hazel : feet, brown. 



Habitat-: Port Darwin and Port Essington, Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York, Rockingham Bay, 



I'oit Denison, Wide Hay District, Richmond and Clarence River Districts, New South Wales; Interior, 



Victoria and South Australia, Western and South-Western Australia, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, 

 New Zealand. 



GENUS RALLUS (Linnaus). 



rill I IS genus is represented in Australia by two species, the type of which is R. aquaticus. It is purely 

 J- an inhabitant of rivers, marshes, and lagoons. 



RALLUS BRACHJPUS (Swains). 



LEWIN'S WATER RAIL. 



T II II IS is not so large a bird as the last, but otherwise sufficiently alike to establish a relationship. It is 

 -L found abundantly in Tasmania, and on the coast of the mainland as far north as Southern 

 Queensland. 



Swainson has described this bird under two names, " Brachipus" and " Lewinii." The first 

 appellation was given apparently in consequence of the shortness of the toes, a peculiarity that seems 

 only to pertain to those birds inhabiting small islands, where the nails become much worn and blunted 

 by traversing stones and gravelly ground; as on the mainland, w^here the ground is softer, the nails 

 remain intact. 



The stomach is rather muscular, and the food consists of aquatic insects and small shellfish, and 

 possibly the leaves of water plants, with newts, frogs, and small fish. 



Gould differs in his description of the eggs from later authority, and to be just to both we will 

 quote each experience. 



" A nest I found," says Gould, " in a lagoon near the river Derwent, in Tasmania, was formed of 

 flags and other aquatic vegetables, placed in a low tuft of rushes, and contained two eggs, one inch and a 

 quarter in length by seven-eighths of an inch in breadth, and of a pale olive colour, blotched all over, but 

 particularly at the larger end, with reddish and dark brown." 



A. J. Campbell, in his " Oology of Australian Birds," writes : — 



