DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 31 



and tantalizingly led me on through tlie thick patch of rushes, 

 always keeping several yards ahead, judging bj' the cackling 

 cries, but always out of sight. 



In July I found several Gallinules' nests, but they were all 

 sham or false nests. Two of them were situated amid calamus, 

 placed on the rushes which had been blown into a horizontal 

 position by the wind. Both were along the border of the marsh 

 and were loosely constructed, shallow and poorly built. 



The Florida Gallinule has various calls and cries, but the 

 most common which it utters when alarmed or on the presence 

 of any one near or at its nest, consists of a series of cackles, 

 remarkably hen-like, uttered incessant!}', and only ceasing when 

 the intruder has left the vicinity. 



The set of ten eggs collected on June 14, 1904, now in the 

 extensive collection of Mr. J. Warren Jacobs, of Waynesburg, 

 Penn., has been kindly described by him for me as follows: 



The ground color is uniform throughout the set, a dull pink- 

 ish buff, with a tendency toward light wood-brown. The 

 markings are scattered pretty evenly over the entire shell, in 

 splotches, spots and minute specks of ecru-drab, lavender-gray, 

 and chestnut- brown of equal distribution. The shape is irregu- 

 lar, varying throughout the set, from elliptical-ovate to elongate- 

 ovate. While most of the eggs vary from true elliptical-ovate 

 by having a slightly blunt small end, two are tj'pical elongate- 

 ovate. Size 1.85x1.26, 1.81x1.21 (elongate-ovate), 1.78x1.23, 

 1.83x1.23, 1.83x1.26, 1.79x1.25, 1.73x1.26, 1.83x1.27, 1.83x 

 1.26, and 1.82x1.25 inches. 



The eggs of the Florida Gallinule and King Rail are usually 

 described as so greatly resembling each other, that it is 

 almost impossible to distinguish them. As a matter of fact, 

 in my experience, the eggs of the former bird are larger in 

 size, the ground color considerably darker, and the markings 

 also of darker coloration. When compared with a set of 

 King Rail's eggs in my collection the differences between the 

 eggs, notably the size, are readily discernible. 



The earliest date of arrival of the Gallinule, of which I have 

 a record, is April 21, 1905, on which day a man captured one 

 in a concrete box at Clearfield and Cedar streets, less than 

 half a mile from the Richmond marsh. 



