518 MOOR-HEN. 
allied representative, G. ga/eata, is found in America, and G. sand- 
vicencis inhabits the Hawaiian Islands; while G. ¢enebrosa, which 
has no white stripes on the flanks, is the Australian species. 
The nest is generally built in wet places, among reeds, sedge and 
other aquatic plants or on the roots of alders ; but it is often placed 
on branches of trees and thorn-bushes over water, even twenty feet or 
more from the ground. The materials employed are dry reed-flags 
( Zypha), sedge &c., matted together, and the birds have been known to 
raise the structure when an inundation was threatened. The eggs, 7-9 
in number, are buffish-white speckled with reddish-brown : measure: 
ments 1°65 by 1‘2 in. Incubation, which lasts three weeks, some- 
times begins in March, and two if not three broods are produced in 
the season ; the ‘young from the first nest assisting their parents in 
building another, and even in taking care of the second brood. The 
Moor-hen usually feeds on slugs, worms, grass, grain when procur- 
able, insects and their larve ; but it will also devour the young of 
other water-fowl, and is very pugnacious towards the latter, as well 
as to members of its own species. The call-note is a loud creh-rek- 
rek, several times repeated, especially towards evening. 
The adult has the fore part of the bill yellow, base and frontal 
plate red; irides reddish-hazel; upper parts chiefly dark olive- 
brown ; head, neck and under parts dark iron-grey, with some white 
streaks on the flanks ; belly and vent greyish ; median tail-coverts 
black, in strong contrast with the conspicuously white lower coverts ; 
legs greenish-yellow, with a red garter above the tarsal joint. Length 
13 in.; wing 6°75. Young birds have the beak, frontal plate, and 
legs dull green; throat white ; under parts ash-grey ; upper surface 
greyish-olive. 
The Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio ceruleus), the Green-backed 
Gallinule (P. smaragdonotus), the Indian P. -poliocephalus and the 
Australian P. melanotus are frequently kept in semi-captivity, and 
individuals which have escaped or, which have been deliberately 
turned out, have from time to time been captured in our Islands. 
The bird from the south-west of Ireland recorded by Thompson as 
a “ Martinique Gallinule” has proved to be P. smaragdonotus, but 
there is said to be a genuine example of the American species in 
Mr. Hart’s Museum at Christchurch. 
