* \ '• * # 
142 YELLOW-BREASTED RAIL. 
towards the outer coverts; inferior wing-coverts and axillary 
feathers white; quill-feathers plain grayish, considerably lighter 
beneath, and with the shafts above darker; last of the primaries 
and first of the secondaries with two or three white dots very 
irregularly disposed, five or six nearest to the body white on a 
great part at tip, the last becoming, however, more generally 
grayish, and only mottled with white; tertials, or rather scapulars, 
blackish, very widely bordered each side with different shades of 
yellowish-ferruginous, of which the palest is outside, and crossed 
by the two narrow white lines, having besides a rudiment of a 
third, equidistant; these scapulars form a whole with the wing- 
coverts and the feathers of the back, being of the same colour, 
only somewhat more brilliant. Tail very short, feathers blackish, 
each side ferruginous, with the two white lines, but interrupted, 
and neither at the tip; the tail is altogether concealed in its upper 
and lower coverts; the upper are of the same colour, but have 
only a terminal white band, whilst the inferior are black at base, 
and with a broad and vividly ferruginous tip. 
This is the most brilliant specimen I have seen, and I must 
declare that it had all the appearance of being adult. Others 
did not, however, differ in anything except in having the colours 
duller and less decided: nor did I notice any difference between 
the sexes, except a little in size, the female being smaller. 
According to Vieillot, however, the plumage I have so minutely 
described could have been only that of the young bird: he states 
the adult male to be different in colour both from the adult female 
and the young, but as the differences appear to consist more in the 
language of his imperfect descriptions than in anything else, we 
shall bestow no further notice upon them. 
END OF VOL. IV. 
