1903 The Green-backed Gallinule 53 



from the Lilford aviaries, but the other (a cceruleus) Lord 

 Lilford handled and looked upon as a genuine migrant 

 (vide his 'Birds of Northamptonshire'). If we consider 

 that this may have been the case with the remaining thirty- 

 five, it is not strange that they should all have occurred 

 near the coast; but it would have been suspicious if such 

 large and conspicuous birds had been first seen far inland, 

 whereas if they had escaped from confinement, the same 

 argument applies as to the probability of their having 

 been seen ere they approached so near to the sea. 



Of the above-mentioned thirty-six specimens, twenty-four 

 were identified as belonging to the green-backed race and six 

 to the purple form, whilst six are recorded without any 

 specific qualification. It is to the first-named species that the 

 following notes chiefly refer, not only because their occur- 

 rences, though least expected, have been the most numerous, 

 but because all sixteen which have been seen or shot in this 

 county (Norfolk) have been representatives of it; and all 

 but one of them have appeared in the Broad district, and 

 that within a radius of less than ten miles. The com- 

 paratively heavy bag from this neighbourhood may partly 

 be accounted for, in addition to the naturally attractive 

 features of the locality, from the fact that probably no other 

 portion of the United Kingdom is so thoroughly and per- 

 sistently searched by gunners, in season and out of season, 

 on Sundays as well as week-days, throughout the year. 

 Some small and rare warblers may, and probably do, escape 

 detection, but certainly few larger rare birds rest here for 

 more than the hours of darkness without discovery and 

 subsequent pursuit. The record Porphyrio year with us 

 was 1897, and although, of course, the five specimens that 

 were then secured around our Broads, together with the 

 one recorded from Yorkshire (' Zool.,' 1898, p. 113), may 

 have escaped from Woburn Park, where a large number of 

 these birds were then in a state of semi-captivity, yet the 

 atmospheric conditions prevailing about the time of the 

 first victim then being secured were almost identically the 

 same as those surrounding the advent of the last locally 

 killed specimen, as ably pointed out by Mr J. H. Gurney in 

 the 'Field' for January 10, ult. June (1-10) 1897 was ex- 



