GALLINULINA. 367 
edge, and occasionally they are more or less floating. The 
eggs, seven to ten in number, are broadish ovals, slightly com- 
pressed towards one end; they have no gloss and are of a pale 
buffy-stone-color, closely and evenly stippled with black or 
blackish-brown specks with an occasional spot of somewhat 
larger size scattered sparingly about the surface. 
The eggs average 1:98 in length by 1°4 in breadth. 
Genus, Gallicrex, Blyth. 
Bill much as in Gallinula, but with the base (in the male) 
prolonged over the forehead and rising into a fleshy carbuncle 
or horn on the top of the head, which is only developed at 
the time of breeding; feet large; hind-toe with the claw short, 
more curved than the others ; otherwise as in Gallinula. 
Gallicrex cinereus, Gm. 
904.—G. cristatus, Latham.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II. 
p. 716; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 261. 
THE WATER-CockK. 
3. Length, 16 to 17; expanse, 23; wing, 8'5; tail, 3:5; tar- 
sus, 3; bill from gape ; 1°23. 
¢. Length, 14; expanse, 22; wing, 7; tail, 2-5; tarsus 2:5; 
bill from gape, 1:25. 
Bill greenish-yellow, red at the base; irides, g, red, 3? brown; 
legs, g, dull red, 9, dull green. 
Male in breeding plumage dull black ; the feathers of the back, 
wing-coverts, rump, and upper tail-coverts, more or less edged 
with pale brown; tertials dark-brown, edged with pale whity- 
brown; edge of the wing white; quills dusky, the shaft of the 
first quill thick, white ; tail blackish-brown, the outer feathers 
edged pale brown; lower wing-coverts dusky, with whitish 
edges, 
The female has the crown of the head and a pale streak 
over the eye unspotted brown ; the rest of the body above 
dark brown; all the feathers edged with pale fulvous, most 
broadly so on the back, scapulars, and wing-coverts; edge of 
the wing and outer web of first quill white; quills dusky- 
brown ; lores, cheeks, and sides of neck fulvous-brown; the 
chin and throat whitish; the rest of the lower part brownish- 
fulvous; the feathers barred transversely with brown, darkest 
on the flanks, outer thigh-coverts, and under tail-coverts, and 
whitish on the belly ; wings beneath dark cinereous. 
Within our limits the Kora or Water-Cock has only been; 
recorded from Sind, 
Genus, Gallinula, Brisson. 
Bill moderate, compressed, rather thick at the base, slightly 
curved at tip, expanding intoa small shield on the forehead; 
