THE AUK: 



A Q^UARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 

 VOL. VIII. January, 1891. No. i. 



A STUDY OF FLORIDA GALLINULES, WITH SOME 



NOTES ON A NEST FOUND AT CAMBRIDGE, 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



Early in June, 1SS9, while wading about in tlie Fresh Pond 

 swamps on the outskirts of Cambridge, I heard one afternoon an 

 unfamiHar bird cry. It was a succession of hen-HlvC cucks given 

 slowly, but in connected series, and sometimes ending with a pro- 

 longed, drawding kcC'-ar-r^ krcv -ar-r^ suggestive of discontent, if 

 not positive suflering, on the part of the bird. The voice was so 

 loud antl strong that it might have been heard nearly or quite 

 half a mile away. Several times afterward during the next few 

 days this strange cry was heard, always in the same place — a bed 

 of cat-tail flags growing near the middle of a wide, flooded 

 meadow. In company with Mr. Faxon and Mr. Torrey I made 

 repeated efforts to find the bird but we failed to obtain any clue 

 to its identit}'. 



It was not until the evening of May 18, 1S90, that we again 

 heard this mysterious cry, this time in a swamp about an eighth of 

 a mile from the marsh just mentioned. It was repeated at 

 frequent intervals, and at length was answered by a second bird 

 which Mr. Frank M. Chapman, who was with us at the time, 

 at once declared to be a Florida Gallinule. The fact that this 

 second cry was uttered immediately after the first, apparently in 

 reply to it, and that, while difi'ering in form, it resembled 



