THE GENUS PORPHYRIO AND ITS SPECIES. 11 



enabling the bird to walk readily over the water plants, 

 though the species can swim well and easily ; the large foot 

 is frequently employed to hold the food, very much in the 

 manner of a parrot, while the bird is eating. In the arrange- 

 ment of the species, colour is our only guide, as no one 

 possesses any characters to entitle it even to a sub-generic 

 position, but certain species have a resemblance to each other 

 in the hues of their plumage, as well as in their distribution, 

 which enables them to be associated in apparently natural 

 groups. Five of these are recognizable, the pecularities 

 characterizing each of which will be found in the key. 

 Geographical Distribution. 



The members of the genus Porphyrio are met with only in 

 five of the Zoogeographical divisions of the globe, viz., the 

 Palasarctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian and Pacific re- 

 gions. It is not represented in either North or South America 

 so far as is known. 



The first of the above-named division possesses but one species, 

 with two more doubtfully recorded, but which are probably 

 merely stragglers from neighbouring regions, or else indivduals 

 that have escaped from confinement. The next has also bub 

 one species ; the third, (the stronghold of the genus), has four ; 

 the fourth two, one of which is restricted to it, and the last, 

 also two. 



Beginning with the Pakearctic region, we find that the 

 P. veterum is found in various portions of Southern Europe, such 

 as Portugal, Spain, the Balearic Isles, Sicily and Sardinia. In 

 North Western Africa it is not uncommon, and it breeds in 

 Algeria. Eastward it ranges to the Caspian. The other 

 species recorded from this region are P. chloronotus, (given 

 also by Sykes as P. smaragnotus, Temm., from the Deccan, 

 Oriental region, but which is certainly intended for polio- 

 cephalus, Latham) , and the P. coilestis, Swinhoe, from Amoy, the 

 species founded on an example living in captivity, and which is 

 probably the P. calvus, Vieill., from some island in the Eastern 

 Archipelago. 



The Ethiopian region has only one representative of the 

 genus so far as known, the P. chloronotus, Vieill., distri- 

 buted generally throughout the Continent, and extending into 

 Madagascar of the Malayan sub-region. 



The Oriental region possesses the greatest number of species, 

 and in India the P. poliocepkalus appears to be almost uni- 

 versally distributed.* In the Indo-Chinese sub-region, the P. 

 edwardsi is met with in Cochin China and Siam, and possibly 



* Extending throughout Arakan, Pegu and Tenasserim as far south as IQ* N. 

 Z«*.— Er. 



