Breeding of the Florida Gallinule (Gallinula galeata) 

 in Philadelpliia County 



BY RICHARD F. MILLER 



The Florida Gallinule is given in Stone's " Birds of Eastern 

 Pennsylvania and New Jersey" as a rare or irregular transient 

 and there is apparently nothing further on record regarding the 

 bird's status in the Delaware Valley. There are some additional 

 records of birds shot, but all of these are evidently migrants 

 and in no sense modify the statement referred to. During the 

 past two seasons it has been my good fortune to find this species 

 breeding not only in the valley of the Delaware but within the 

 city limits of Philadelphia, and the account of my experience 

 which follows apparently constitutes the first record of the breed- 

 ing of this species in either Southern New Jersej' or Eastern 

 Pennsylvania. As to its occurrence in summer elsewhere than 

 in the limited area covered by my investigations I cannot speak, 

 but from the fact of its being overlooked in this spot and its 

 nests being attributed to the King Rail (Rallus elegnns), it seems 

 quite probable that the same thing has occurred elsewhere and 

 that not a few of the recorded nests of the King Rail really 

 belong to the Florida Gallinule, which may yet prove to be a 

 not infrequent summer resident of our river marshes. So diffi- 

 cult are the birds to flush and such admirable concealment do 

 the marshes furnish that the overlooking of the bird is hardly to 

 be wondered at. 



The marsh where I have found the Florida Gallinule breed- 

 ing is the largest one left in the northeastern section of the city, 

 and is situated at Richmond, less than five miles from the City 

 Hall. It comprises about twenty acres, and lies between West- 

 moreland and Tioga streets, and the banks of the Delaware river. 

 It has been divided into three parts by the intersecting of two 

 streets and a canal. The smallest and less important marsh, 



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