356 
ALECTORIDES. 
to larger and deeper ponds in interior swamps. It lias but a single brood in a season, 
unless the first has been destroyed. Its flight is stronger and more protracted than 
that of the crepitans, but otherwise resembling it. When suddenly flushed, it rises 
and goes off with a chuck, its legs dangling, and proceeds in a straight line for some 
distance, after which it drops among thick grass and runs off with wonderful speed. 
Its number is not diminished in winter by any migratory movement. 
Mr. Moore mentions as a curious fact in the natural history of this species, as well 
as in that of crepitans and virginianus, and the Porzana Carolina, that it is almost 
impossible to flush one after the middle of November, in localities where during the 
two previous months a dozen or more might be put on wing in a few hours. This 
bird may then be often heard, but not seen, as at other times, to take wing. 
Two eggs in my collection (No. 75), obtained in the Calumet marshes, Illinois, by 
Robert Kennicott, have a ground-color of a dead creamy white ; they are marked 
quite sparsely with small spots and blotches of a prevalent oval shape, some being of 
a purplish-slate color, but the larger portion being dark purplish brown. One egg 
measures 1.69 inches in length by 1.29 inches in breadth ; the other 1.68 inches by 
1.25. 
Rallus Beldingi. 
BELDING’S RAIL. 
Rallus Beldingi, Rid gw. Proc. U. S. Fat. Mus. Vol. 5, 1882, 345. 
Hab. Espiritu Santo Island, Gulf of California. 
Char. Most resembling 11. elegans. but darker and richer colored throughout, the sides and 
flanks with the white bars much narrower, and marked also with very distinct blackish bars. 
Size smaller. Adult male (No. 86419, Espiritu Santo Islands, Lower California, Feb. 1, 1882 ; 
L. Belding) : Pileurn and upper half of nape dark sooty brown or sepia ; ground-color of other 
upper parts deep olive-brown (much as in R. virginianus — decidedly darker than in R. elegans), 
broadly striped with brownish black, about as in R. obsoletus ; wing-coverts dull chestnut-brown, 
tinged with olive, the exterior feathers more rusty ; supraloral stripe light cinnamon, the feathers 
white at base ; lores, continuous with a broad stripe behind the eye, dull grayish brown ; under 
eyelid whitish ; malar region, cheeks, entire foreneck, jugulum, and breast rich cinnamon, much 
deeper than in any of the allied forms ; chin white, throat mixed white and cinnamon, the latter 
on tips of the feathers ; entire sides and flanks rather dark hair-brown (less olivaceous than upper 
parts), rather distinctly barred with blackish and very sharply barred with pure white, the bars of 
the hitter color about .05-07 of an inch in width ; lining of wing dark brown, with very narrow 
white bars ; anterior and middle portion of crissum marked much like the flanks, the lateral and 
terminal lower tail-coverts pure white. Basal two thirds of the mandible and posterior portion of 
maxillary tomium deep orange ; rest of bill dark horn-brown, the end of the mandible paler ; feet 
dark horn-brown. 
Wing, 5.70 inches ; tail, 2.50 ; culmen, 2.15 ; depth of bill at base, .50 ; in middle, .30 ; tar- 
sus, 1.92 ; middle toe, 1.80. 
Compared Avitli specimens of all the allied species and races of the genus, the 
present bird is instantly distinguishable by the characters pointed out above. In 
intensity of coloration it most nearly resembles It. virginianus, but, apart from its 
much larger size, presents the following differences of coloration : the side of the 
head below the eye is chiefly cinnamon, whereas this portion is in P. virginianus very 
distinctly ashy ; the breast, etc., are both deeper and redder cinnamon ; the ground- 
color of the sides and flanks much paler (uniform black in B. virginianus ) ; the black 
stripes of the upper parts are both narrower and less sharply defined, Avliile the wings 
are much less rusty. 
