EALLID^ — THE GALLIXULES — GALLINULA. 



389 



white. Stripes on the flanks less distinct or nearly obsolete. Doivny ijoung : Glossy black, the 

 medial lower parts Miginous ; throat and "cheeks interspersed with silvery white hairs ;' bill 

 yellowish (red in life ?) crossed about the middle by a dusky bar. 



Total length, about 12.00 to 13.00 inches ; extent, 20.00 to 21.00; wing, 6.85-7.25 ; culmen 

 (to end of frontal shield) 1.70-1.85 ; tarsus, 2.10-2.30; middle toe, 2.50-2.60. 



This species much resembles the Moor-hen, Water-hen, or Gallinule of Europe (G. chloropus), 

 but is larger, has the frontal shield truncated instead of pointed posteriorly, and is otherwise different. 

 It likewise resembles other exotic species, particularly G. Garmani of the Peruvian Andes, but is 

 c^uite distinct. Specimens vary a great deal in the size and shape of the frontal shield, and in the 

 amount of white on the abdomen. These variations are by no means dependent on localitv, how- 

 ever, but upon the individual, having doubtless some connection with age and season, the white on 

 the abdomen being more marked on winter specimens. 



The habits and the distribution of this species, more especially the latter, have 

 been very imperfectly known, and very incorrectly given. "Wilson appears to have 

 been unaware of its existence. Audubon regarded it as identical with the European 

 Moor-hen, and as an exclusively southern species — a few migrating to Carolina on 

 the east — and thought that those found on the fresh waters of the middle districts 

 were only stragglers. It was said not to ascend the j\Iississii:)pi above Katchez, and 

 not to be seen in the western country. Xuttall, Avhile recognizing its distinctness as 

 a species from G. chloropus of Europe, calls it the Florida Gallinule — a name calcu- 

 lated to perpetuate the wrong impression existing as to its distribution — and speaks 

 of it as ''unknown in Canada." Even IMr. Cassin, in the ninth volume of the ''Pacific 

 Eailroad Eeports," assigns to it a habitat exclusively southern, and considers it 

 as only accidental in the ]\Iiddle and Xorthern States — making no mention of its 

 abundant presence both in the Northwestern States and on tlie coast of California. 

 Instead of being known as the Florida Gallinule, it deserves the more comprehensive 

 title of American Gallinule. It is abundant in South America from Panama to the 

 region of the La Plata, in the West India Islands, in Central America, in the Southern 

 Gulf States from South Carolina to the ^Mississippi, and probably to Mexico, on the 

 California coast, and in the region of the Great Lakes, both on the American and 

 the Canadian shores. 



Professor Newton found it a common and resident species in St. Croix. While it 

 closely resembles the European chloropus in its appearance, and while the habits of 

 the two birds appear to be identically the same, their eggs even being undistinguish- 

 able from each other, the notes of the two birds are very different. This Gallinule 

 breeds in St. Croix in April, and also in Cuba, where it is abundant. Mr. March 



