220 WADING BIRDS. 



water, are often swept away by the floods of summer, and many of 

 the young are destroyed by rapacious fish, and particularly by the 

 pike. The flight of the Gallinules, except when they rise high in 

 the air, is slow and limited, so that they have only recourse to it in 

 extremities ; it is also performed in a peculiar heavy manner, with 

 the legs hanging down, and not stretched out as in other waders. 

 Their voice is strong, but guttural and unpleasant ; and their flesh 

 is, by most, considered palatable. — The genus consists of five or 

 six very similar species, spread over all the warm and temperate 

 climates of the globe. The only race remarkably distinguished 

 by its different plumage is the G. martinica, which, in the bril- 

 liancy of its vesture, approaches the nearly related Porphyriones, or 

 Sultanas. 



