History and Systematic Position 



HISTORY 



John James Audubon published the first description of the King 

 Rail as a distinct species. The Great Eed-bieasted Rail or Fresh-water 

 Marsh Hen, as he called it, was introduced with the publication of his 

 painting in Birds of Ame^^ca (Audubon, 1834, plate 203). A year 

 later a description of this new rail appeared in his OmithologiGal 

 Biography (Audubon, 1835, p. 27-32). 



Alexander Wilson, Audubon's predecessor, encountered this same 

 species but thought it was the adult form of the Clapper Rail {R alius 

 longirostris) , "following the current opinion of gunners that it was 

 a very old example of that species" (Stone 1908, p. 110). Elaborating 

 on this point, Audubon (1835, p. 27) stated: 



No doubt exists in my mind that Wilson considered this beautiful bird merely 

 the adult Rallus crepitans [Rallus longirostris crepitans], the manners of which 

 he described, as studied at Great Egg Harbour, New Jersey, while he gave in 

 his works the figure and colouring of the present species. My friend, Thomas 

 Nuttall, has done the same, without, I apprehend, having seen the two together. 

 Always unwilling to find fault in so ardent a student of nature as Wilson, I felt 

 almost mortified when, after having in the company of my worthy and learned 

 friend, the Reverend John Bachman, carefully examined the habits of both 

 species, which in form and general appearance, are closely allied, I discovered 

 the error which he had in this instance committed. Independently of the great 

 difference as to size between the two species, there are circumstances connected 

 with their habits which mark them as distinct. The Rallus elegans is altogether 

 a fresh-water bird, while R. crepitans never removes from the salt-water 

 marshes . . . 



J. d'Arcy Northwood (1956, p. 224), commenting on Audubon's 

 discovery, said: 



The king rail was one of Audubon's scoops. Here was a large rail, not particu- 

 larly rare, that lived unknown and undescribed under the noses of the experts 

 in Philadelphia. Audubon realized that it was distinct from the clapper rail of 

 the salt marshes, with which it had been confused, and named it the Great Red- 

 breasted Rail or Fresh- Water Marsh Hen. 



The type locality given in the American Ornithologists' Union 

 Check-list of North American Birds (1957, p. 152) is Kentucky, South 

 Carolina, Louisiana, and north to Camden, N.J., and Philadelphia — 

 Charleston, S.C. 



Although Audubon collected and observed the King Eail in several 

 localities prior to his field studies in company with Bachman in the 



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