32 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



Mr. Edwin C. Axe, the well-known Frankford taxidermist, 

 who has hunted and mounted birds for over fort}' years, in- 

 forms me that he has never met with the Florida Gallinule, but 

 said that he had mounted two for a gunner, both killed years 

 ago in the meadows at Bridesburg during the breeding season. 



The gunner, he said, flushed the first bird in a marsh and 

 shot it. His dog going for it flushed another which he also 

 shot. Becoming suspicious of the true state of affairs he investi- 

 gated and had his suspicions verified by finding a nest contain- 

 ing two eggs, which he collected. He brought the specimens 

 to Mr. Axe, who mounted the birds and blew the eggs, after 

 vainly trying to coax a bantam hen to brood them. These two 

 birds are the only Florida Gallinules that he has ever seen, and he 

 attributes their apparent scarcity to the fact that gunners seldom 

 shoot them on account of the almost impossibility of flushing 

 them without a good dog, and to their early migration, which 

 he considers takes place in August, before the opening of the 

 Rail bird season in September. I do not know when the Florida 

 Gallinules migrate, but have never heard one in the marsh after 

 early August.* Whether they had departed for the south or 

 became silent I do not know. Mr. Axe's description of the eggs 

 coincides with my eggs, as well as the site and composition of 

 the nest. 



Several gunners wdiom I have interviewed for information 

 relative to the Florida Gallinule all agree that it is a rare bird 

 seldom seen and still more rarely shot. All that they have ever 

 seen or shot have been on the marsh at Richmond in spring 

 and summer, none later than August. Not one of the gunners 

 knew the species as Florida Gallinule, though Mr. Axe did, but 

 they called it Water and Mud Hen, or Red-billed Water Hen. 



The existence of the marsh where the Gallinules breed will 

 be of short duration, as the dump is rapidly encroaching upon 

 it and is diminishing its size at an alarming rate. In two or 

 three years, at least, it will be a thing of the past and its 

 feathered denizens gone to parts unknown. 



* There are, however, September and October records in Stone's Birds of 

 Kaskrn Poinsylvania and New Jersey. 



