PUBPLE W ATE BE EN. 47 



("Ibis," vol. ii, p. 159,) in one of tlie most interesting papers I 

 ever read, detailing his visit to Lake Halloula, near Algiers, thus 

 speaks of this bird: — ''We were rewarded by a single nest of the 

 Great Purple Gallinule. A magnificent fellow he is as he rises 

 sluggishly from a dense mass of water-weed, shewing his rich purple 

 sheen in the sunlight, and hanging behind him his huge pink legs 

 and feet. His nest is very like that of the Coot, but the number 

 of eggs seems fewer, four being the largest number I have taken in 

 one sitting, though the complement was very probably not complete. 

 I need not add anything to what Mr. Salvin has stated ('Ibis,' vol. 

 i, p. 361,) as to the predatory habits of this bird. The eggs surpass 

 in beauty, to my eye, those of any other of the class; their rich pink 

 ground, with their red, russet, and brown spots, are very character- 

 istic." 



Malherbe, in his "Birds of Sicily," gives February and March as 

 the months in which this bird incubates; and he says that the young 

 are hatched in April, and are covered with a bluish black down, 

 with the beak and frontal plate blue. But the journey of Mr. 

 Tristram, from which I have made the above extract, was made in 

 May, 1856. Now Sicily being in the same latitude as Algiers, and 

 only some four hundred and fifty miles further east, we can hardly 

 imagine a difference of two or three months in the nidification of this 

 bird in the two places. In fact there is doubt about M. Malherbe's 

 description of the bird. Degland thus expresses this doubt in a 

 note: — "Ce savant n'indique pas la couleur des ceufs. Ne parlerait-il 

 pas de visu?" 



The eggs are stated by Degland to be two to four, which agrees 

 with Mr. Tristram's account. He also describes the egg very correctly. 

 The colour is certainly richer and deeper than that of our Waterhen, 

 with spots and small dots of reddish brown and purple, particularly 

 at the larger end, and with cretaceous deposits more or less apparent 

 on the surface. Baldamus, in "Naumannia," 1853, p. 41, et seq., 

 says: — "These eggs belong to the most beautiful of the order. They 

 vary little in size and form, or, especially, in colour and markings." 



This beautiful Waterhen, says Degland, is by nature gentle and 

 timorous, and does not leave its solitude unless driven from it by 

 hunger or danger. Its simplicity is such that it will allow itself 

 to be taken alive by the boatmen, as it plunges to escape from 

 them. 



. It has a heavy flight, like the AYaterhen, and it only has recourse 

 to its wings when frightened by a gun, or to pass from one marsh to 

 another. It generally, when pursued, dives or squats down among 



