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YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 
little higher than the others : the nails are short, compressed, 
curved, and acute. The first primary is shorter than the fifth; 
the second, third, and fourth being the longest. The tail is very 
short, the feathers flaccid, not appearing from beneath the coverts. 
The female is generally, though not always, similar to the 
male, an exception being met with in one of the small European 
species. The young differ much from the adult. They moult 
twice a year. 
The bill of the subgenus JRallus (true Rails,) may be thus 
described: longer than the head, slender, straight, subequal 
throughout, compressed at base, cylindrical and obtuse at the 
point; upper mandible furrowed beyond the base; nostrils more 
basal, linear. 
In the Crakes, of which the present is an example, the bill is 
shorter than the head, robust, much higher than broad at base, 
tapering, compressed and acute at the point: upper mandible 
furrowed at base only, a little curved at tip: the lower is 
navicular: the nostrils exactly medial, oblong. Apparently the 
group is easy to define, but as if nature took delight in baffling 
our attempts at exactness, the species are found to pass from one 
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form to another by nice and insensible degrees. 
This Rail, like all others, inhabits swamps, marshes, and the 
reedy margins of ditches and lakes. By a singular coincidence, 
it was in the market of New York that, in the beginning of 
February, 1826,1 first met with this pretty species, which appears 
to have escaped the industrious research of Wilson, although 
found equally in Pennsylvania in winter, where it is, however, 
very rare. We can hardly believe it is to be found in the south 
or south-west, notwithstanding we have been credibly informed of 
the circumstance. But we have no hesitation in declaring it an 
arctic bird, for we do not doubt that it is the Hudsonian Quail of 
Latham, thus miscalled by superficial observers on account of its 
