LORD HOWE ISLAND RAIL. 
pale chestnut, barred with blackish-brown; quills below, chestnut, barred with blackish- 
brown ; bill dark grey, feet very dark grey, eyes brown. Collected on Little Slope Lord 
Howe Island, on the I2th of February, 1914. 
Eggs. A clutch of two eggs was found on the 8th of January, 1914, on the top of Mount Gower 
They look like gigantic Water Rails’ or Hypotcenidia philippmsis eggs. They have not 
much gloss, the ground-colour is pinkish-cream, and they are marked with spots and patches 
of red-brown and pale-purplish or purplish-grey patches. They measure : 49'8 x 36*2 and 
48 X 37'2 mm.* 
Nest. A depression in the leaves, under low foliage. 
Eggs. Clutch four ; dull white, with minute dots and large irregular shaped markings of light 
chestnut-red, more or less scattered over the surface of the shell, obsolete marking of the 
same colour predominating towards the larger end, 48-51 mm. by 33-35. 
Breeding-season. October, November and January. 
Amongst the Raper drawings is a splendid painting of this bird done in 1790, 
on Lord Howe Island, about eighty years before it was described by Sclater. 
It differs from the typo of the genus Tricholimnas in having the feathers 
of the back and wings less fluffy; it could be placed in a new sub¬ 
genus Sylvestrounis and called Sylvestrcrrnis sylvestris (Sclater). 
*Dr. E. Hartert described this, and most of the eggs, from material from my collection, now in 
Tring Museum. 
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