I Be 
PORPHYRIO SMARAGDONOTUS. 619 
and Senor Anchieta has forwarded specimens from various localities 
in Benguela and Mossamedes. 
General colour, deep black, shining-brown if held in certain 
lights ; bill bright yellow; eyelids and feet red, changing in death, 
the first to a dirty green, the latter to a light brown; irides dark 
crimson. Length, 73”; wing, 44”; tail, 13’. 
Fig. Swainson, B. of W. Afr. ii. pl. 28. 
597. PorPHYRIO sMARAGDONOTUS, J'emm. 
Green-backed Purple Gallinule. 
Porphyrio erythropus, Layard, B. 8. Afr. p. 341. 
The “Blue Gallinule” “or Konig Reit-haan” (lit. King Reed- 
Fowl) is generally distributed throughout the colony, frequenting 
vleys and large ponds. It breeds in the marshes and vleys about the 
Berg River and other such places among reeds in September, forming 
a large nest of sedge, and depositing from six to ten eggs, of a ruddy- 
brown, spotted with dark purplish-brown: axis, 2” 2’"; diam., 1”6’”. 
Writing from Port Elizabeth, Mr. Rickard says that he has not 
procured it himself, but has seen it from Uitenhage. Mr. Gurney 
records it from Natal. 
In one of Mr. Gurney’s papers on the birds of Natal Mr. Ayres 
observes :— This beautiful species is found, though not abundantly, 
in the more extensive swamps and lagoons in the colony of Natal, 
and seems to be pretty generally distributed, though, in consequence 
of its close and shy habits, it is not easily obtained. These birds 
generally remain amongst the high rushes and reeds; but during 
the winter, in the mornings and evenings, they often leave their 
cover to catch the first and last rays of the sun, and they are then 
frequently to be found perched on a clump of rushes or reeds. 
They make many extraordinary noises, most unmusical and quaint. 
Their food consists of the inner and soft parts of the shoots of reeds 
and of other water-plants; these may be found in their stomachs 
chopped up like chaff by their powerful bills, which no doubt are 
expressly provided for peeling off the outer bark and hard parts of 
the plants they feed upon.” 
Later on he writes from the Transvaal:—“‘The specimen sent, 
shot 20th June, is the only one I have been able to get lately. 
This species is decidedly not so plentiful in the neighbourhood of 
Potchefstroom as it used to be some years back : whether the gradual 
