670 SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — ALECTOUIDES— EALLIFOBMES. 
with ease the mazes of the reedy marshes to which they are almost exclusively confined ; 
while by means of their long toes they are prevented from sinking in the mire or the floating 
vegetation. The wings are never long and pointed as among Limicolce, being in fact of the 
shortest, most rounded and concave form found among waders ; and the flight is rarely pro- 
tracted to any great distance. The tail is always very short, generally of 10 or 12 soft 
feathers. Details of the bill and feet vary with the genera ; but the former is never sensitive 
at the tip, and the latter have the hallux longer and lower down than it is in the shore-birds. 
The nostrils are pervious, of variable shape. The head is completely feathered ; the general 
plumage is ordinarily of subdued and blended coloration, lacking much of the variegation 
commonly observed in shore-birds ; the sexes are usually alike, and the changes of plumage 
not great with age or season. The food, never probed for in the mud, but gathered from the 
surface of the ground or water, consists of a variety of aquatic animal and vegetable substances. 
The nest is a rude structure, placed on the ground, or in a tuft of reeds or other herbage ; the 
eggs are numerous, generally variegated in color ; the young are hatched clothed. The 
general habit is gregarious, and migratory ; many species occur in vast multitudes, though 
their skulking ways, and the nature of their resorts, withdraw them from casual observation. 
Some species swim habitually. 
.There appear to be upward of 150 species of the family, falling in several well-marked 
groups. The Ocydromince are an Old World type of some 35 species, ranking with some 
authors as a distinct family. Mr. Gray makes the African Himantornis hcematopus the type 
and single representative of another subfamily. Excluding the ParridcB and Heliornithidce, 
both of which are sometimes brought under Hallidce, as subfamilies, the three remaining 
groups are represented in this country. 
Analysis of Subfamilies and Genera. 
Rallin^. Rails. No frontal shield, the feathers of forehead reaching bill. Toes simple. Body com- 
pressed. 
Bill slender, longer than head, cuirved, with long narrow nasal groove and linear nostrils . . Itallus 271 
Bill stout, not longer than head, straight, with broad nasal groove and oblong nostrils . . Porzana 272 
As in the last ; wings longer, folding nearlj'- to end of tail Crex 273 
Gallinulin^. Gallmules. A bare horny frontal shield. Toes simple or merely margined. Body 
less compressed. 
Toes without evident lateral margins ; nostrils oval lonomis 275 
Toes with lateral margins; nostrils narrow Gallinula 274 
FuiiiciN^. Coots. A bare horny frontal shield. Toes lobate. Body depressed. Nostrils narrow 
Fulica 276 
62. Subfamily RALLIN/E: True Rails. 
This is the largest, and central or typical, group, to which 
most of the foregoing paragraph is especially applicable. The 
species are strictly paludicole ; the compression of the body is at 
a maxinmm ; the form is blunt and thick behind, with a very 
short tip-up tail, and tapers to a point in front ; the whole fig- 
\\m being thus adapted to wedge through narrow places. The 
wings are extremely short and rounded, and the ordinary flight 
appears feeble and vacillating, though the migrations, of many 
Fig 464 —Carolina Rail. (From species are very extensive. The tail has 12 feathers. The 
Tenney, after Wilson.) flank-featliers are commonly enlarged and conspicuously col- 
ored; the thighs are very muscular; the tibiae are generally if not always naked below; the 
tarsi scutellate in front ; the toes are long, cleft, without lobes or any obvious marginal mem- 
branes. The bill occurs under two principal modifications : in Uallus proper it is longer than 
the head, slender, compressed, slightly curved, long-grooved, with linear nostrils ; in Porzana 
and most genera, however, it is shorter or not longer than the head, straight, rather stout. 
