2Q2 RALLID^E '. RAILS AND THEIR ALLIES. 



E. O. Bangs, Sept. 10, 1878 (Pr. Bost. Soc., xx, 1879, P- 

 273). Mr. R. Deane notes the Gallinule as probably 

 breeding in New England, in Forest and Stream, xiii, 

 1879, p, 785. Mr. Boardman has taken the Gallinule 

 at Calais, Me. (Am. Nat., v, 1871, p. 662), and Mr. R. E.j 

 Robinson records it among the rare Vermont visitors 

 (Forest and Stream, xii, 1879, P- 2 &5)- Mr. Purdie in- 

 forms us of various other cases. For New Brunswick, 

 we have the authority of Mr. Brewster for the capture 

 of a specimen at Dick's Lake, in September, 1880 

 doubtless the same case as that recorded by Chamber- 

 lain, Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. N. B., 1882, p. 56, though the 

 date is there given as September, 1879. There is also 

 a Nova Scotia record (Gilpin, Orn. and Ob'l., vii, 1882, 

 P. 123). 



PURPLE GALLINULE. 



IONORNIS MARTINICA (Linn.) Reich. 



Chars. Head, neck and under parts beautiful rich blue, with 

 a purplish tinge, blackening on the belly, the sides of the body 

 and lining of the wings bluish-green, the crissum white. Upper 

 parts olive-green, the cerviae and wing-coverts tinted with blue. 

 Frontal shield blue ; bill carmine, tipped with yellow ; legs yellow. 

 Young, with head, neck and lower back brownish ; under parts 

 mostly white, mixed with ochrey ; but distinguished in any 

 plumage from the last by the very stout bill with oval nostrils near 

 its middle, obovate frontal shield with a point behind, and toes 

 without lateral margins. About the size of the last. 



A very rare and casual visitor from the South ; yet 

 there are several authentic instances of the appearance 

 of this " sultan of the water-fowl " in various parts of 

 New England. The earliest of these, to our knowledge, 



