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Show 104 MR. W. H. HUDSON ON THE HABITS OF RAILS. [Jan, 18, materials, usually on the floating weeds; the eggs are four, in shape like Snipes' eggs, and have deep-brown spots on a pale yellowish-brown ground. During incubation the male keeps guard at some distance from the nest, and utters a warning cry at the approach of an intruder; the female instantly flies from the nest, but in rising renders herself very conspicuous. When the nest is approached the parent birds hover about, occasionally fluttering as if wounded, all the time keeping up a clamour of hurried angry notes somewhat resembling the barking cries of the Black-collared Stilt. The Jacana has always appeared to me strictly diurnal in its habits. Some of our Rails and Rail-like birds I will pass over, either because I have not learnt their habits or have failed to discover any thing interesting in them not known already, as in the case of our two species of Fulica. I will mention, in passing, that the Bartram's Sandpiper (Actiturus bartramius), judging purely from its habits, is a near relation of the Rails. This species, I believe, has not had a place assigned it in the Argentine avifauna-a strange oversight; for it is one of our commonest birds. I will now give a brief account of Rallus rhytirhynchus, of Porzana erythrops, and of that king of Rails the Aramides ipecaha. The Black Rail (Rallus rhytirhynchus) abounds everywhere in the La-Plata region where reeds and rushes grow. They are always apparently as abundant in winter as in summer; this fact has surprised me greatly, since I know this species to be migratory, their unmistakeable cries being heard overhead every night in spring and autumn, when they are performing their distant journeys. Probably all the birds frequenting the inland marshes on the south-western pampas migrate north in winter; and all those inhabiting the shores of the La Plata and the Atlantic sea-board, where there is abundant shelter and a higher temperature, remain all the year. On the Rio Negro of Patagonia the Black Rails are resident; but the winter of that region is mild; moreover the wide expanse of barren waterless country lying between the Rio Negro and the moist pampas region would make migration from the former place impossible to such a feeble flyer. Of this instinct we know at least that it is hereditary; and it is hard to believe that from every one of the reed-beds distributed over the vast country inhabited by the Black Rail a little contingent of migrants is drawn away annually to winter elsewhere, leaving a larger number behind. Such a difference of habits cannot possibly exist amongst individuals of a species in one locality; but differences, in the migratory as in other instincts, great as the one I have mentioned, are found in races inhabiting widely separated regions. It is difficult to flush the Black Rails; they rise in a weak fluttering manner, the legs dangling down, and after flying forty or fifty yards drop again into the reeds. Their language is interesting. When alarmed the bird repeats, at short intervals, a note almost painful from its excessive sharpness; it utters it standing on a low branch or other elevation, but well masked by reeds and bushes, and incessantly bobbing its head, jerking its tail, and briskly turning |
