I'OHl'llN Klu. 



229 



Porphyiio. The late Sit" Walter IJuller applies the name of Swamp Hen to Pcn'pliyr:.) melanoiuittis 

 in his " Birds of New Zealand," and the same name is applied by the residents of Western 

 Australia to /'. hcllus, which inhafiits the western portion of the continent. 



Out of the multiplicity of vernacular names used for tlie f^enus J'oi'pJiyvio, 1 prefer to use 

 the oldest name of Gallinule, which is most frequently adopted by writers of the Old World. 

 In fact there is no necessity to coin a new vernacular name for a species of a genus that has been 

 known to Old World authors for o\er a century, because representatives of the genus Porphyria 

 happen to be found at the Antipodes. 



The present species is freely distributed over the greater portion of Eastern Australia, 

 likewise Tasmania. It frequents the reedy margins of rivers, backwaters and swamps, and is 

 probably one of the best known of the Family RAi.i.iD.t:, its size rendering it a conspicuous 

 object. Not only does it haunt the more secluded parts of the country, but in some places it 

 may be seen about ornamental sheets of water in our public parks and gardens. It was in my 

 early collecting days common in the Botanical Gardens, Melbourne, one's attention often being 

 attracted to it as it hurried across some path near the waterside, flicking its short tail with a 



curious motion upwards, and dis- 

 /" //■ ^ / closing the pure white under tail- 



coverts. In this retreat I have 

 often noted these birds each make 

 a perch for itself by grasping three 

 or four reeds or long rushes to- 

 gether, climb up for about eighteen 

 inches abo\e the water, and then 

 bend with its bill all in reach to a 

 common centre. As school-boys 

 we at first thought they were 

 foundations, preparatory to forming 

 nests, but these structures were 

 very much smaller, and were only 

 used by the birds as resting places. 

 Only two nests were found in this 

 position, and one was taken in the 

 adjacent Tea-tree scrub, built up 

 between the bases of several Tea- 

 tree stems. I have also seen this 

 bird on the Torrens River, near 



HLACK-IiACKED liALLIN'ULE. 



the Botanic Gardens, Adelaide. 



Near Sydney it is occasionally seen in the Centennial Park, and about the Botany Swamps, 

 but is far rarer than it was ten years ago, especially in the latter locality, owing to the reclamation 

 of many of the swamps and the building of houses in this once comparatively unfrequented 

 wild. In northern New South Wales it is common on all the reed-covered margins of the upper 

 parts of the coastal rivers. In 1898 it was plentiful on the Clarence River, above Ulmarra, 

 and on the swamp on the common at North Grafton. 



During a short visit to Tasmania I noted it in the marshes near Bridgewater, and one in 

 the reeds on the river banks above New Norfolk. 



The food consists chiefly of vegetable substances and grain, it also eats fresh water molluscs, 

 and various water insects. Stomachs of specimens shot at Botany contained gravel, nii.xed only 

 with what appeared to be the ground-up stalks of the common reed, Typha angiistifolia. These 



58 



