PURPLE GALLINULE. 39 
The Purple Gallinule breeds at a remarkably early period of the 
year. I have found young birds in their jetty down clothing in Fe- 
bruary, and they have been observed in the same month by the keepers 
of the lighthouse at the south-west Pass of the Mississippi, at Key 
West, and in other places. The parent birds are sometimes so very 
intent on saving their young, as to suffer themselves to be caught. At 
this period their calls are almost incessantly heard during the whole 
night, and are elicited during the day by any musical or remarkable 
noise. The nest is generally placed among a kind of rushes that are 
green at all seasons, round, very pithy, rarely more than five feet high, 
and grow more along the margins of ponds than in the water itself. 
The birds gather many of them, and fasten them at the height of two 
or three feet, and there the nest is placed. It is composed of the 
most delicate rushes, whether green or withered, and is quite as sub- 
stantial as that of the Common Gallinule, flattish, having an internal dia- 
meter of eight or ten inches, while the entire breadth is about fifteen. 
The eggs, which are from five to seven, rarely more, are very simi- 
lar to those of the Common Gallinule, being of a light greyish-yellow, 
spotted with blackish-brown. The young are at first quite black, and 
covered with down. They are fully fledged by the first of June, when, 
as I have said, they and their parents remove to the wet savannahs in 
the neighbourhood. 
The jerking motions of the tail of this bird, whenever it is disturbed, 
or attracted by any remarkable object, are very quick, and so often re- 
peated as to have a curious appearance. It runs with great speed, and 
dives with equal address, often moving off under water with nothing 
but the bill above. The lightness and ease with which it walks on the 
floating plants are surprising, for in proceeding they scarcely produce 
any perceptible disturbance of the water. When swimming in full se- 
curity, they move buoyantly and gracefully, throwing the head forward 
at every propelling motion of the feet. The flight of this species is less 
swift than that of the Common Gallinule, or of the Rails, unless when it 
is travelling far, when it flies high, and advances in a direct course by 
continued flappings ; but when it is in its breeding or feeding grounds, 
its flight is slow and short, seldom exceeding thirty or forty yards, and 
with the legs hanging down ; and it alights among the herbage with 
its wings spread upwards in the manner of the Rails. It often alights 
