Tahiti rail Tahiti rail The Tahiti rail, Tahitian red-billed rail, or Pacific red-billed rail ("Gallirallus pacificus") is an extinct species of rail that lived on Tahiti. It was first recorded during James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775), on which it was illustrated by Georg Forster and described by Johann Reinhold Forster. No specimens have been preserved. As well as the documentation by the Forsters, there have been claims that the bird also existed on the nearby island of Mehetia. The Tahiti rail appears to have been closely related to, and perhaps derived from, the buff-banded rail, and has also been
Lapwing (1769 EIC packet) normally brought provisions had not arrived. The famine was the Great Bengal famine of 1770, which killed an estimated 10 million people (a quarter of the population), in the area. It was caused due to the widespread forced cultivation of opium (forced upon local farmers by the EIC as part of its strategy to export it to China) in place of local food crops, resulting in a shortage of grain. Citations References Lapwing (1769 EIC packet) Lapwing was a packet ship that made two round-trips to India for the British East India Company (EAC). Currently, both her origin and her