362 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I50 



When the birds are not seen their presence is often known by 

 their clacking or guttural calls, that may be accompanied by cracking 

 sounds made by snapping the bill. 



The breeding period is long as eggs or newly hatched young have 

 been recorded in Panama from March to early November. Nests 

 are shallow platforms made of the marsh vegetation adjacent to the 

 site, usually placed at a slight elevation, that allows a small margin 

 of safety when water levels rise during heavy rains. Gross and Van 

 Tyne (Auk, 1929, pp. 431-446) describe in detail their observations 

 of a nest found along the shore of Barro Colorado Island. The site 

 was concealed in tall grass on a floating island, a few meters from 

 the jungle covered shore. Green grass blades still attached at the 

 base had been woven into a platform 35 centimeters across with a 

 shallow depression to hold the eggs. A runway 3 meters or so long 

 woven from the surrounding grass led to a little platform less than 

 a meter above the water. This was a pathway used to reach and 

 leave the nest, repaired constantly, to keep it in proper shape. The 

 four eggs ranged in measurement from 39.1-42.8x28.5-29.8 mm. 

 and in weight from 15.15 to 16.35 grams. They hatched after an 

 incubation period of about 22 days. 



The eggs vary from subelliptical to oval, are without gloss, and 

 have the shell very faintly roughened. The color varies from very 

 pale cream color (nearly white) to bufif and pale cinnamon-buff, 

 spotted sparingly with dots of cinnamon or rufous-brown, that ap- 

 pear bluish or purplish where covered by a thin deposit of shell. In 

 Florida the usual set of eggs numbers 6 to 8 with an occasional 

 increase to 10, but the number recorded in Panama is less, being 

 normally 4 or 5. The young remain in the nest a day or so after 

 hatching, and then follow the parent birds in the water. 



Food of these gallinules is made up of the insects and spiders 

 available in their watery haunts. The bits of vegetation found in 

 examination of stomachs of birds killed for specimens probably are 

 swallowed by accident with other food items. 



The species ranges widely through the tropical zone of the 

 Americas, extending to southeastern United States on the north and 

 northern Argentina on the south without evident differences in size 

 or color. 



The species is often called gallito, and cocaleca de la laguna by 

 country residents. 



