BED-LOBED COOT. 61 



arrangements of scientific writers. Linnceus classed tlie Porpliyrion 

 and the Coot together. Brisson, in founding the genus of the former, 

 restricted it to those members of the family of Rails whose legs were 

 destitute of membrane, which included the Gallinules of Gesner and 

 others. Temminck, by reason of their lobed feet, placed the Coots in 

 a new order, Piniiatipedes, thus separating them altogether from the 

 Rails and other grallatorial birds. I think the great master whom I 

 have followed in this work was scarcely justified in thus sacrificing 

 both structural afiinity and similarity of habit to an overstrained regard 

 for the peculiar and solitary analogy of membranous lobes on the feet. 

 I have therefore, as will be seen by reference to the heading of this 

 notice, ventured to dififer with Temminck in his arrangement of this 

 bird. The frontal shield alone ought to have prevented the separation 

 which he made in this genus. 



The R.ed-lobed Coot is an African species, diifering but little in 

 reality from our well-known British species, of which it is probably only 

 a climatic race. In Europe it occurs annually in Spain, and is found 

 in France and Italy. In the "Revue de Zoologie" for 1841, p. 307, 

 M. Barthelemy states that this bird comes regulaidy every year to the 

 Lake of Albufera, in the Commune of Valence, in the Department of 

 the Drome, in France; and that one was killed in 1841, on the waters 

 of Marignan, a short distance from Marseilles, and which forms part 

 of the collection of the younger M. Montvalon. 



Salvadori (Fauna d'ltalia) writes of this bird: — -"This species is 

 distinguished from the Common Coot by the two red protuberances 

 upon the posterior part of the frontal lamina. It is met with rather 

 frequently in Sardinia and Sicily; on the contrary it is rather rare in 

 Continental Italy, where only very few individuals have been taken. 

 One found in Liguria is mentioned in the Acts of the Reunion of 

 Scientific Italians, held in Florence, 1841, p. 313. Also Durazzo 

 mentions this species as accidental in Liguria, (Guida de Geneva, i, 

 p. 158.) Another individual was found in the market of Pisa, and is 

 preserved in the Museum of that University. In Sardinia this species 

 is well known to the fishermen in the ponds near Cagliari, and so 

 many of them that Casa was assured that in some years they came 

 in great numbers and nested there. Casa has already observed, in 

 ' Ornithologie Sardu,' p. 64, that amongst the Fulica left to breed in 

 Sardinia some have been taken, which had a little fleshy protuberance 

 above the frontal plate, but at the same time it is not known they 

 belong to a species diflerent from F. atra. The existence of this bird 

 in Sicily was indicated by Malherbe, and it is recorded that in the 

 Museums of Catania and Palermo are preserved several individuals 



