NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXIV. 1917. 265 



ON SOME RALLIDAE. 

 By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



I. THE NAME OP THE AFRICAN "PURPLE COOT." 



THE large African Purple Coot or Purple Moorhen — Porphyria is next alHed 

 to the Moorhen, and not to the Coot — ^has been known as Porphyria sma- 

 ragnotus, smaragdonotus, or inadagascariensis, which names all refer to it, and it 

 has also been named chlorynothos, cldoronotus, and aegyptiacus. In 1894 Sharpe 

 introduced for it the name Porphyria porphyria, pretending that it was Linne's 

 " Fidica porphyria " of 1766, and this name was adapted by Reichenow, in the 

 Vogel A frikas, as of 1 758 ! 



Linnaeus {Syst. Nat. ed. x. i. p. 152, 1758) called Fulica porphyria a bird 

 which he diagnosed as follows : " Fulica fronte calva, corpore violaceo, digitis 

 simplicibus." He quotes as his sources : (1) " Brown, Jamaica, 479." Brown, 

 of course, described the American species! (2) " Albin, av. 3, p. 79, t. 84." 

 Albin figured and described a bird which is all over uniform purplish blue and 

 has a white tail. This can only be P. caeruleus and not the African species, 

 which has a green back. Albin does not say where the home of his bird was, 

 but refers to the one described by Plinius, Gesner, and Aldrovandus, who must 

 all have had P. caeruleus in their mind, though they mostly described it from 

 pictures only. (3) "Raj. av. 116, n. 13." Ray says he only saw pictures and 

 does not know if the bird really existed. " An detur hujusmodi avis dubita- 

 tur ? " (4) " Edwards, av. 87, t. 87." Edwards figures and describes a bird 

 which was all over "of a fine blue, inclining to violet." He gives no locality, 

 but says a Mr. Bell told him he had seen male birds in China. (5) " Dodart. 

 act. 3, p. 30 ? " I have not seen this book, but Dodart had, so far as I know, 

 only black-and-white figures and no text ; moreover, as Linne queried his figure, 

 this quotation is of no avail. 



Last but not least : Linne said : " Habitat in Asia, America." 



In 1766 (Syst. Nat. ed. xii. i. p. 258) Linne described his F. porphyria 

 as corpore viridi, subtus violaceo, and added some more quotations, Bellonius, 

 Gesner, Aldrovandus, Clusius, Willoughby, and Brisson. Most of these were 

 compilators who referred to the bird described by Phnius, Gesner, Aldrovandus, 

 but Brisson gave a description of a bird with a green back which he says came 

 from Cayenne, though it seems that he reaUy did describe an African specimen, 

 as he says it is nearly as large as a fowl, and afterwards the " Petite Poule Sul- 

 tane," also from Cayenne. In any case, this cannot alter the meaning of Linne's 

 " Fulica porphyria," of which in 1 766 he said, " Habitat in India Asiae, Americae." 



It is thus clear that Linne's " Porphyria "" of 1758 was a mixture of the 

 South American Porphyria martinica and the Mediterranean P. caeruletis, but 

 has absolutely nothing to do with the African species. There is therefore no 

 justification whatever for adopting this name for the African species. 



In 1766 Linne altered his diagnosis, and described a sijecies with a green 

 back, but as he did not mention the size and says no word of the occurrence 

 in Africa, that may just as well refer to the American species. Therefore even 



