I to MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



54. Gallinula galeata (Licht.). 

 Florida Gallinule. 



Summer resident, breeding sparingly in one or two localities. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



April 29, 1895, one seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. 



May 15 — October 25. 

 November 9, 1898, one seen. Pout Pond, A. H. Hathaway. 



NESTING DATE. 



June 5, 1S90, nesti and twelve eggs.i Pout Pond, W. Brewster. 



Josselyn in the ' Two Voyages ' includes ^ " Z'«f,(vn- or Moorhens" among 



the birds which he found in New England either in 1638 or between 1663 and 



1 67 1. As he also mentions the Coot (referring without doubt to Fulica amcri- 



cafia) and as the Moorhen of England is a true Gallinule closely resembling our 



Florida Gallinule, there can be little or no question that the latter was the species 



to which he refers. It would be interesting to know whether he found it in the 



region near Boston, with which he was personally familiar, or at Black Point (now 



Scarborough), Maine, where he lived for upwards of eight years. In either case 



his mention of the bird is, I believe, the earliest that relates to any part of New 



England. 



Nuttall apparently did not meet with the Florida Gallinule near Cambridge, 



but Peabody, in his ' Report on the Ornithology of Massachusetts,' published in 



1839, states,^ on the authority of "Mr. Cabot," that a specimen "was shot in 



Fresh Pond several years ago." Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, also, includes* the species 



among the ' Sedge-birds ' which he and his brother found in the Fresh. Pond 



Marshes between 1832 and 1840, and Mr. Edward C. Cabot mentions it (in the 



letter quoted in connection with my account of the Yellow Rail) in terms which 



indicate that it was not very uncommon and that its chosen haunts were the beds 



of reeds at the outlet of Fresh Pond. 



' No. 2527, collection of William Brewster. 



•■'John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, loi. W. Veazie's reprint, 1865, 

 80. 



^ W. B. O. Peabody, Storer and Peabody, Reports on the Fishes, Reptiles and" Birds of Massa- 

 chusetts, 1839, 2 58. 



• J. E. Cabot, Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 1S69, 384. 



