(SPOT-WINGED CRAKE.)
+Rallus salinasi+, _Philippi, Wiegm. Arch._ 1857, pt. i. p. 262
(Chili); _Burm. Ibis_, 1888, p. 285. +Porzana spiloptera+,
_Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 194, pl. iii. (Buenos Ayres).
_Description._--Above olive-brown with black markings; wings with
white cross bands; front, sides of head, and body beneath plumbeous;
flanks dark grey, with transverse bars of white; under tail-coverts
barred with black and white; beak dark horn-colour; feet rather
lighter: whole length 5·5 inches.
_Hab._ Chili and Argentina.
In 1876 Durnford obtained a specimen of this Crake from the river-scrub
near Belgrano in the province of Buenos Ayres, and described and figured
it in 'The Ibis' under the MS. name "_spiloptera_," which had been given
by Dr. Burmeister to an example of the same bird in the Buenos Ayres
Museum.
Dr. Burmeister has, however, recently ascertained that the appellation
which he proposed for this species must give way to that of _salinasi_,
under which title it was described in 1857 by Dr. Philippi of Santiago.
_Porzana salinasi_, as we must therefore call it, is most nearly allied
to _P. spilonota_ of the Galapagos (_cf._ Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S. 1868,
p. 456), but has the wings more distinctly striped, and the back
olive-brown, with black markings, and not of a uniform ferruginous.