Hab. Chili, Argentine Republic, and Patagonia.
This Rail is a small southern representative of the well-known Virginian Rail of the U.S. It is stated to be “rather common” at Carhué by Mr. Barrows, and Mr. Withington has recently sent us specimens from the Lomas de Zamora.
[371.] RALLUS RHYTIRHYNCHUS, Vieill.
(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.