494 Mr. Fox on some rare English Birds. 



two kinds, which I have for some time suspected to be the same, 

 and am now, from a view of this specimen, tempted to bring to- 

 gether. It was shot in the meadows near Spondon, a village about 

 three miles south-east of Derby, November 8, 1821. Its length 

 is 7\ inches ; its make slender. Its colour from below the chin to 

 the thighs is uniformly dark slate without spot, like the Water 

 Rail, and this colour rises over the eyes by a well defined line. 

 Above, the prevailing colour is russet or olivaceous brown, which 

 on the crown is varied by small black stripes ; and on the back 

 and coverts of the wings are numerous white spots, rather large, of 

 a mottled form, edged and intermixed with black. The thighs, 

 abdomen, and under tail coverts are transversely barred with black 

 and white; the bill is dark green, and the legs apparently the 

 same. The wings reach to only half the length of the tail, and 

 the tertial feathers are as long as the primaries. 



I first suspected this to be the little Gallinule of Montagu, or 

 Gall, pusilla of Temminck, but in that species the wings are 

 stated by both authors to reach to the end of the tail, and the 

 tertials, by Montagu, to be very short. In the former circumstance 

 it corresponds with Montagu's figure of the Olivaceous Gallinule, 

 and Temminck's essential character of the Poule d'eau Baillon. 

 It differs in some respects from Mr. Selby's figure of Dr. Thack- 

 eray's Gall. Baillonii, but principally in the darker colour of its 

 breast and belly, which may be owing to difference of sex. la 

 other marks it agrees closely with the figure. 



If I should be right in this appropriation, it will serve to bring 

 together two uncertain synonyms, and confine our number of 

 British Gallinules to those described by M. Temminck; in which 

 case however Col. Montagu's name of Olivaceous Gallinule (Gall. 

 FoljamhiiJ would be entitled, in point of priority, to a prefer- 

 ence to that of the continental authors.* 



* The bird described above is, I believe, an adult specimen of the Gall. 

 Baillonii of Temminck. I cannot however acquiesce in Mr Fox's opinion 

 respecting the identity of the two species quoted in the text. The Olivaceous 

 Gallinule of Montagu is the Gall, pusilla of Bechstein and Temminck, and 

 does not at any age exhibit the white spots on the wing coverts which are con- 

 gpicuous in Gall. BaiUonii. The extent of the wings compared with the tail. 



