S4 THE NATURALIST IN BERMUDA. 
The Carolina Crake is found in the Island of Barbadoes, 
and Gosse mentions it as frequenting the swamps of Jamaica; 
but of the great body of these birds mentioned by Wilson 
as annually departing from the shores of the northern States, 
there is little cause to doubt that the rivers and marshes 
of South America will prove to be their southern haunts. 
There is one circumstance connected with the history of 
this, and, indeed, of many other migrants, which I have not 
adverted to, viz., the very fat condition in which they arrive 
in the Bermudas, and which renders it sometimes difficult to 
skin specimens. Now this extreme condition has always 
appeared to me to be a provision of nature, to sustain these 
birds on their long and arduous flight from one region to 
another ; if not, how are we to account for the maintenance 
of the legions of plover, sandpipers, and other birds which 
traverse the Atlantic, probably for thirty or thirty five 
degrees of latitude, without food ? 
CoMMON GALLINULE, or Moor HEN (Gallinula chloropus). 
This is one of the native birds of the Bermudas, rearing its 
young in pools and swamps, where the dense growth of 
flags and sedge renders it almost impossible to follow it. 
In October this gallinule is more common, appearing 
suddenly in marshes and ponds, where for months pre- 
viously it had been unknown. This autumnal appearance 
must arise, either from the scattering of native broods, or 
from an influx of migrant strangers from the American 
coast. I am inclined to think the latter the most likely 
cause. In October, 1850, a common gallinule was shot in 
the waters of Hamilton Harbour, and on the 16th of Sep- 
tember, 1854, a boy brought mea living specimen which he 
had captured in the back yard of his mother’s house in the 
