Part 42

Length 10 inches, expanse 15¹⁄₂, flexure 4⁸⁄₁₀, tail 2, rictus 1¹⁄₂₀, tarsus 1⁹⁄₁₀, middle toe 1¹⁄₂. Irides vermillion; beak yellowish-green, blackish above; feet dull purplish-crimson, or pink. Plumage reddish-brown, dark on back and wings; brighter and redder on sides; paler and more ashy on belly. Wing-quills blackish.

The gallinaceous form common to the Rails, and the red hue of this species have given to it the provincial name of Water Partridge. It affects freshwater morasses, and secluded streams, rather than saline swamps, and is found even on the mountain acclivities. I have shot it skulking among the aquatic weeds at Basin Spring. As it roams, it utters at intervals of a few seconds, a cluck, like a hen. The remarkable thinness of body, common to all this tribe, beautifully adapts them for making their way through close herbage.

It is sometimes seen perched on a low tree by the road-side, at which time it seems to have lost its usual shyness, and sits looking at the sportsman until he nearly comes up to it. Its flight is singularly ineffective; slow, heavy, and laboured; the head is projected, and the body hangs down, as I have seen the body of some unwieldy Bombyx, distended with eggs: the feet also are pendent.

I have never found in the gizzard of the Red-Rail, (which though small, is muscular) anything but a homogeneous cream or mud of a dark brown hue; or a green mucus.

The flesh is pale and flabby; the fat of a rich salmon-red.

A specimen sent to Mr. Hill by Dr. Hay from the neighbourhood of the Black River, in St. Elizabeth’s, illustrated, in the manner of its capture, the habits of the genus. The Doctor observed, while standing on the steps of the house at Elim Estate, this Rail sauntering through the grass. He pursued it, and ran it among some oleanders that grew in clumps about, and succeeded in getting it. When brought into the house, the bird shot rapidly across the floor, and getting into a darkened corner of the room, remained quiet there, believing itself concealed. On being driven out from that hiding-place, it again scudded away over the floor to another dark corner, in which it remained quiet as before. These recesses seemed to represent the dense coverts in which it ordinarily conceals itself in apprehended danger; its reliance on which, doubtless, made it so easy a prey to its captor’s hand, when it had taken refuge among the stems of the oleanders.

STRIATED CRAKE.

(Carolina Rail.—+Wils.+)

Ortygometra Carolina.

Rallus Carolinus, +Linn.+—Aud. pl. 233. Ortygometra Carolina, +Leach+.

Length 9 inches, expanse 13³⁄₄, flexure 3⁹⁄₁₀, tail 1⁸⁄₁₀, rictus ⁹⁄₁₀, tarsus 1¹⁄₂, middle toe 1³⁄₄.

The only specimen of this bird that I possess was shot among the reeds in Salt Spring morass, near Black River, the habitation of incredible numbers of these and similar birds. It was near the end of November. Though it slightly differs from Wilson’s description, in the buff hue of the vent being scarcely noticeable, I conclude that it is of his species; the rather, since Mr. Hill has procured a specimen from Passage Fort, in which the buff hue was conspicuous. His specimen was obtained in March. It is probably a winter visitant from the United States, where Wilson describes it as an abundant species.

In the stomach of that which I dissected, I found only mud and coarse siliceous sand.

Le petit Râle de Cayenne of Buffon, (Pl. enl. 817) is probably a female of this species.

MINUTE CRAKE.

Ortygometra minuta.

Rallus minutus, var. β, +Lath.+ Ortygometra minuta, +Leach+.

Length 6 inches, expanse 8⁶⁄₁₀, flexure 2⁷⁄₁₀, tail 1²⁄₁₀, rictus ⁷⁄₁₀, bare portion of tibia ³⁄₁₀, tarsus 1, middle toe 1⁷⁄₂₀. Irides brick-red; beak dark olive, edges at base paler green; legs and feet clay-colour. Forehead, crown, and occiput black, softening at the sides and nape; a black band from rictus passes through the eye, above which is a band of white, interrupted by black immediately over the eye. Sides of head and neck, yellowish-ash, blending with the black. Back, shoulders, scapulars, and loins yellowish-umber, each feather deepening in the centre to dark brown, with a conspicuous stripe of pure white running through the middle of the terminal half. Wing-coverts yellowish-brown; the greater coverts and the tertiaries have dark centres, and terminal white spots. Primaries and secondaries greyish black. Tail coverts black, with broad spots and tips of white; tail as the tertiaries. Chin, throat, and whole under parts white, slightly tinged on the breast with buff. Sides, flanks, under-tail-coverts, and outer part of thighs, marked with transverse bands of black and white.

In travelling from Bluefields to Savannah le Mar, we save about two miles by taking what is called the Short Cut, a bridle-path through the deep matted woods. The trees are largely sweet-wood, tangled, near the edges of the broad morass, which occupies so much of this plain, by spreading bushes of black-withe and cockspur. Two streams are to be forded, the one a sluggish water that crosses the path immediately on our entering the woods, the other is the deep and rapid Sweet River. After pursuing for more than a mile the track through the bush, which here and there opens on each side into secluded grassy glades, adorned with many flowers, and haunted by gay butterflies, the gradual predominance of marsh plants, sagittaria, ginger-fern, bulrush, and black-withe, to the exclusion at length, of every thing else, warns us of our approach to the river, and at length we come suddenly upon it in all its beauty. Emerging darkly into view from beneath overhanging trees on the right, upon which is spread a thick drapery of convolvuli, whose lovely festoons, gemmed with purple and green, depend to the very surface of the water, the stream gurgles along a pebbly bed, or here and there glides with treacherous smoothness over quicksands hidden by the waving tresses of the dark green equisetum; and is presently lost again in the meandering of its tortuous course through the bushes.

Many sorts of water-fowl haunt this darkling stream: scarlet-fronted Gallinules, that were feeding at the edge, alarmed at our approach, flutter along the surface with much splashing of the water and laborious flapping of their wings, to seek concealment; while the less timid, but more beautiful Sultana bridles its purple neck, and peeps at us from the shadow of the overarching withes, or walks calmly away over the shallows. The harsh scream of the Little Bittern comes fitfully from the reedy morass, and the cry of the Clucking-hen from its watch-post above; the little Squat-ducks are diving in the eddies of the stream, the Blue Kingfisher darts across with his rattling call, while the snowy form of the White Gaulin is seen in the distance, relieved against the dark bushes, as it drags its heavy flight across the swamp. All the while gushes of rich melody are pouring from the throats of a dozen Mocking-birds around, soothing us as we recline on the soft beds of thyme that profusely cover the bank and fill the air with delicious fragrance.

It was in this situation that Sam found the little Crake before us, on the 30th of March. It was at first standing at the edge of the stream, whence it ran up the large marsh-fern, vulgarly known as Wild-ginger, and peeped from among the fronds, until the lad shot it. It was a male. I found in its stomach, which was not very muscular, merely a little yellowish mucus, and some small gravel. We never met with the species again. I suspect, however, it is a permanent inhabitant of the morasses; but the impenetrable character of these sombre and fœtid recesses, renders an acquaintance with their inhabitants very difficult. The swiftness of foot, and the retiring habits of most of these birds, as well as their nocturnal rather than diurnal activity, add to this difficulty. The naturalist is often indebted for his knowledge of a species to “the fortune of the hour,” more than to his own efforts. Hence, I have no doubt, many birds of this tribe, unknown to me, exist in Jamaica.

LITTLE RED-EYED CRAKE.

Ortygometra Jamaicensis.

Rallus Jamaicensis, +Gmel.+—Aud. pl. 349. Ortygometra Jamaicensis, +Steph.+

Length 6 inches, expanse 9³⁄₄, flexure 3, tail 1²⁄₁₀, rictus ⁷⁄₁₀, tarsus 1¹⁄₁₀ (nearly), middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀. Intestine 12¹⁄₂ inches; two cæca, slender, one ¹⁄₂ inch, the other ¹⁄₃ inch, long.

A specimen of this little Crake was brought to me in April, alive and unhurt. It lived in a cage two days, but though I enclosed with it a vessel containing water and mud, with aquatic weeds in a growing state, and scattered on it crumbs of bread and pounded corn, it scarcely ate. Once or twice I observed it picking in the mud, but in general it would not even walk on it. Yet it was not at all timid. Its motions were very deliberate; slowly raising its large feet, and then setting them down, often without making a step. The neck was usually drawn in, short; and then it had little of the appearance of a Rail, but rather of a passerine bird; but when it walked, the neck was more or less extended horizontally, and now and then bridled up: the head was carried low. The throat was often in slight vibration, when standing still. I observed no flirting, nor erection of the tail.

On two or three occasions, I have seen the species. Near the end of August, pursuing a White Gaulin in the morasses of Sweet River, several of these little Rails, one at a time, flew out from the low rushes before my feet, and fluttering along for a few yards, with a very laboured flight, dropped in the dense rush again. Their manner of flight, and their figure greatly resembled those of a chicken; the legs hung inertly down. I saw another in February, by the border of the River at the Short Cut, flying with the same feeble and laborious motion, from one tuft of herbage to another, whence it would not emerge till almost trodden on.

I have not heard it utter any sound; but Robinson, in describing two that were brought to him alive in October, 1760, says, “their cry was very low, and resembled that of a Coot, when at a great distance.” He notices also their peculiar mode of flight, as well as their habit of squatting. “Several,” he observes, “were killed accidentally, by the negroes at work; as they are so foolish as to hide their heads, and, cocking up their rumps, think they are safe, when they are easily taken.” (MSS. iii. 112.) He says elsewhere, “The negroes in Clarendon call it Cacky-quaw, by reason of its cry, which consists of three articulations; the negroes in Westmoreland call it Johnny Ho, and Kitty Go, for the same reason.” (iii. 134.)