125 



NESOLIMNAS ANDREWS. 



DIFFERS from Cabalus by the relatively shorter bill ; by having the 

 whole culmen convex with the tip sharply decurved, by having a 

 close instead of a loose plumage, and a much less reduced sternum, 

 with a well-developed instead of almost obsolete keel. Type of genus 

 Nesolimnas dieffenbachi (Gray). 



NESOLIMNAS DIEFFENBACHII gray. 



(Plate 27.) 



Rallus Dieffenbachii Gray, Dieffenb., Trav. N.Z. II App. p. 197 (1843). 

 Ocydromus dieffenbachi Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds p. 14, pi. 15 (1846). 

 Hypotaenidia dieffenbachi Bonaparte, C.R. XLIII, p. 599 (1856). 



Cabalus dieffenbachi Sharpe, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds p. 29, pi. 15 (1875), id., Cat. 



B. Brit. Mus. XXIII p. 47 (1894). 

 Nesolimnas dieffenbachi Andrews, Novit. Zool. III. p. 266, pi. X, figs 3-15 (1896). 



ADULT: " General colour above, brown, banded on the mantle and scapulars, 

 and spotted on the upper back with ochreous buff, these buff markings 

 being margined with black, which takes the form of broad bars on 

 the mantle; lower back and rump uniform brown; upper tail coverts brown, 

 barred across with light rufous and black ; lesser wing coverts like the back ; 

 median and greater coverts, as well as the primary coverts and quills, light 

 chestnut, barred with black, the inner secondaries spotted and barred with 

 ochre and black, like the back ; tail feathers brown, mottled with chestnut near 

 the base ; crown of the head and nape uniform brown, followed by an indistinct 

 patch of chestnut on the hindneck ; lores dull rufous, surmounted by a broad 

 line of bluish grey, extending from the base of the nostrils to the sides of the 

 nape; rest of the sides of the face bluish grey, extending on to the lower 

 throat ; this grey area of the face separated from the grey eyebrow by a 

 broad band of dark chestnut, which extends from the lores through the eye 

 along the upper part of the ear-coverts ; chin and upper throat white ; 

 lower throat black, barred across with white ; fore neck and chest 

 ochreous buff, banded rather narrowly with black, this pattern of colouration 



