(BLACK RAIL.)
+Aramides rhytirhynchus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 504 (Paraná).
+Rallus rythyrhynchus+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 139; _iid.
P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 145 (Buenos Ayres) et p. 446; _Hudson, P. Z.
S._ 1870, p. 104 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1878, p. 65
(Buenos Ayres); _White, P. Z. S._ 1883, p. 42 (Cordova); _Barrows,
Auk_, 1884, p. 276 (Entrerios). +Rallus nigricans+, _Durnford,
Ibis_, 1877, p. 193.
_Description._--Above greenish brown; beneath plumbeous; bill
incurved, greenish, with a blood-red basal spot; feet red: whole
length 12·0 inches, wing 5·4, tail 2·8. _Female_ similar.
_Hab._ Southern Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, Chili, and Patagonia.
This Rail differs from the other species in its beak, which is very long
and curved, as in the Painted Snipe (_Rhynchæa_), and has three strongly
contrasted colours--dark green, bright blue, and scarlet at the base.
The blue and red tints become very vivid in the love-season. Without
being anywhere abundant, the Black Rail is found throughout the Plata
Region in every place where reeds and rushes grow. In the marshes
along the Plata they are met with quite as frequently in winter as in
summer; this fact surprised me greatly, since I know this species to
be migratory, their unmistakable 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 Plata marshes and the Atlantic sea-board, where there is abundant
shelter and a higher temperature, remain all the year. On the Rio Negro
of Patagonia I found the Black Rail a resident, but the winter of that
district is singularly mild; moreover, the wide expanse of waterless
country lying between the Rio Negro and the moist pampa region would
make an annual migration from the former place difficult to such a
feeble flier. Of this instinct we know at least that it is hereditary;
and it becomes hard to believe that from every one of the reed-beds
distributed over the vast country inhabited by this species a little
contingent of migrants is drawn away annually to winter elsewhere,
leaving a larger number behind. Such a difference of habit cannot exist
among individuals of a species in one locality; but differences in the
migratory as in other instincts, great as this, are found in _races_
inhabiting widely separated districts.
It is difficult to flush the Black Rail; it rises in a weak fluttering
manner, the legs dangling down, and, after flying thirty or forty yards,
drops again into the reeds. Its language is curious: when alarmed,
the bird repeats, at short intervals, a note almost painful from its
excessive sharpness, and 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 from side to side. It
has, at such times, a very interesting appearance, while the long beak,
brilliant with the nuptial colouring, the bright-red eye and vermilion
legs, admirably contrasting with the fine deep slate plumage, give it
considerable claims to beauty. At other times it has a hollow call-note
with a puzzling ventriloquism in the sound, which is sometimes repeated
at short intervals for an hour. While uttering it the bird stands, as
usual, on a slight eminence, but drawn up in a listless attitude and
without any of its nods and jerks and other frisky gestures. It has also
a kind of song, which sounds not unlike the braying of a donkey; hence
the vernacular name _Burrito_ (little ass) by which the bird is known in
the Plata. This song is heard both day and night, and is a confused
performance, uttered without pause, and composed of several long shrill
notes, modulated and mingled with others, hollow and booming. These
notes can be heard a thousand yards away; but, far or near, they always
sound remote.