Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 85/A Rail New to the Malay Peninsula
A Rail New to the Malay Peninsula.
While arranging and naming the collection of Bird skins which have accumulated in the Raffles Museum during the last thirty years, an interesting discovery by which another species is added to the list of Birds known to occur in the Malay Peninsula was made by Mrs. Horton, who has already done much valuable work on the bird collections of this Museum. Among the mass of unidentified material stored away was the skin of a Rail bearing the following label: "Kotta Tinggi, Johore. Dec. 18th 1892. Sex female." This skin proved to be that of Elwes' Crake, (Porzona bicolor Walden).
This Crake was first procured by Captain Elwes in the interior of Sikkim at an elevation of 5,000 feet, in September 1870. Godwin-Austen found it in rice-fields about 5,000 feet up in the Khasi Hills in the month of June. Hume says he is sure he saw this species below Hoondoong at a height of 3,500 feet. It was obtained later by Collingwood Ingram in 1906 in the Lichiang Valley, West Yunnan, South China.
The Ruddy Crake (Limnobaenus fuscus) which occurs regularly in the Malay Peninsula, is closely allied to and somewhat similar to Elwes' Crake but the latter inay be easily distinguished by the grey colour of the head, neck and breast, the Ruddy Crake being uniformly rufous.
There is, however, a slight possibility of a mistake having been made in attaching the original label, as a former Curator of the Raffles Museum obtained several specimens of birds and insects from the Eastern Himalayas and the Johore label may have been tied in error to one of this collection. There is no evidence to support this theory, and considering the habits of Rails there is nothing at all surprising in the bird having been found in Johore. The Indian records were made in the summer and our specimen may have migrated here for the winter.
It would, of course, be more satisfactory if this record could be supported by the capture of another specimen in the Malay Peninsula.