EULABEORNIS. 
331 
perfectly sure there could be no mistake as to their identity. The 
eggs forwarded by Inspector Johnstone, have a pale cream or 
whitish ground colour, sprinkled all over, but more thickly at the 
larger end of some, with irregular shaped spots of light reddish- 
chestnut, and a few of lilac tinge appearing as if beneath the 
surface of the shell, having the characteristic form, markings, and 
colour of all true Rail’s eggs. They are four in number, in length 
1 -55 to l -65 inch. The nest was composed of a few leaves and grass 
and hidden amone thick debris at the root of a tree in a dense 
o 
part of the scrub near Mr. Johnstone’s camp. The young on 
leaving the egg are covered with a sooty-black down, having a 
dark plumbeous tinge on the under surface. The young at about 
five months old have the upper surface of a dull dark brown 
tinged with olive and washed with light rufous-brown on the back 
of the neck ; the under surface is of a duller and more plumbeous 
brown, with a faint wash of rufous-brown on the chest and under 
tail-coverts, which latter have two pale rufous bars on each feather; 
the under surface of the wings blackish dull brown, a band of 
white spots near the base, and a similar band about the middle 
of the quill-feathers ; bill olive-brown ; legs greenish-olive ; iris 
reddish-brown. Total length 7 inches, wing 3'6, tail T5 tarsus 
2 inches, bill 09 inch.” (Ramsay, P.Z.S., 1875, p. 603.) 
The above set of eggs measures as follows:—length (A) 1 '55 x IT 
inch; (L!) TGx 1T2 inch; (C) T62 x 1T inoii; (D) 1'05 x 1'08 inch. 
Hah. Cape York, Rockingham Bay, South Coast New Guinea. 
(Ham nay.) 
Genus EULABEOliNIS, Gould. 
EULABEORNIS CASTANEIVENTRIS, Gould. 
Chestnut-bellied. Rail. 
Goultl, Ilandhh. Bds. Auit., Yol. ii., sp. 572, p. 338. 
“ This large and fine species of Rail inhabits the low muddy 
shores and mangrove swamps of the north coast of Australia. The 
