GRALLATORES. 321 



Sp. 503. PORPIIYRIO MELANOTUS, Temm. 

 Black-backed Porphyrio. 



Porphyrio melanottts, Temm. Man, d'Orn. 2nd Edit., torn. ii. p. 701. 

 Black-backed Gallinule, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. ix. p. 472. 

 Ar-ra-weid-bit, Aborigines of Port Essington. 



Porphyrio melanotus, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. vi. pi. 69. 



This bird is universally distributed over Tasmania and the 

 greater part of the continent of Australia wherever situations 

 suitable to its habits occur, such as marshes, lagoons clothed 

 with sedge and rushes, and the sides of rivers. On comparing 

 specimens from Tasmania, South Australia, and Port Essing- 

 ton, I find them to differ in size ; those from the first- and 

 last-mentioned localities being smaller than examples pro- 

 cured in South Australia and New South Wales : Gilbert's 

 notes also indicate a difference in the habits of the Port 

 Essington bird, but I am inclined to believe this to be 

 merely the result of a difference in the nature of the locality 

 and the kind of vegetation. 



In Tasmania the Porphyrio melanotus is very abundant 

 on the banks of the Derwent above Bridgew^ater ; I also 

 found it on the lagoons between Kangaroo Point and Cla- 

 rence Plains, on the Tamar for ten miles below Launceston, 

 and in every part of the island wherever favourable localities 

 occur. Early in the morning, and on the approach of evening, 

 it sallies forth over the land in search of food, which consists 

 of snails, insects, grain, and various vegetable substances ; it 

 runs with great facility, and readily avails itself of this power 

 on the approach of an intruder, making for the thickest 

 covert, and threading it with amazing quickness, much after 

 the manner of the Moorhen {Gallinida cldoropus) of Europe; 

 its flight is also very similar to that of the Moorhen, and like 

 that bird it resorts to this mode of progression only when 

 hard-pressed. In New South Wales it inhabits precisely the 



VOL. II. Y 



