1.4 
I ' 
YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 
same writers omit to distinguish separately, as has been done by 
some Germans and Italians. It will not be useless here to bear 
in mind that even the two chief divisions of this natural genus 
pass so insensibly into each other as to make it impossible to 
separate the connecting species, so that a great many Brasilian 
Rails are arbitrarily placed in either subgenus, notwithstanding 
that the extremes—which among the four North American species 
may be exemplified by this, the Yellow-breasted namely, and 
the Virginia Rail—are so widely different: and this furnishes 
additional proof of the inexpediency of Latham’s arrangement, 
however it may have since been admired and imitated. Our 
genus Rail, which we maintain to be natural, though closely 
related to Gallinula, and especially Porphyrio , is easily known at 
once from them all by the feathered front, common to all the 
species. 
The bill, varying in length, which affords the means of 
distinguishing the two subgenera, is in all the Rails more or less 
thick at base, generally straight, and always compressed : the 
upper mandible is furrowed each side, somewhat vaulted and 
curved at tip, its base extending upwards between the feathers of 
the front: the nostrils, placed in the furrow, are medial, oblong or 
longitudinal, open and pervious beneath, and covered at base by a 
membrane (by which conformation they differ essentially from the 
i 
Porphyrios): the tongue is moderate, narrow, compressed, entire, 
acute, fibrous at tip: the forehead is feathered : the body very 
compressed and thin flanked. The naked space on the tibia is 
small, the tarsi subequal to the middle toe, somewhat compressed, 
so as to make up for the want of membrane in the analogy to the 
Webfooted, that other less aquatic wading birds exhibit. We 
are particular in remarking this, for the toes are entirely divided, 
and the decurrent membrane extremely narrow. The hind toe 
equals in length one phalanx of the middle, and is inserted a 
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