294 The IVater-fowl Family 



namon edged with white; head, gray with an indistinct loral 

 stripe of drab; throat and belly, white; jugulum and breast, 

 pale drab ; sides banded with brown and white. 



Young — Similar, but without the gray on the head. 



Downy young — Dark sooty brown; head, blackish; bill, dusky; 

 iris, brown ; feet, bluish flesh color. 



Measurements — Length, 10.50 inches; wing, 6 inches; oilmen, 0.88 

 inch; tarsus, 1.50 inches. 



Eggs — Seven to ten in number ; light buff, spotted with pale red- 

 dish brown ; measure 1 .40 by 1 inches. 



Habitat — Europe and northern Asia; recorded in North America 

 from Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, Rhode 

 Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and 

 Bermuda. 



The corn crake is a bird of Europe, regularly 

 breeding in Greenland, from whence it straggles 

 to the eastern Atlantic Coast as far south as Long 

 Island, and has been taken in Bermuda. A speci- 

 men shot near Saybrook, Connecticut, is in the pos- 

 session of John H. Clark, Saybrook, Connecticut. 



This species is abundant throughout Europe, 

 frequenting wet meadows and cultivated fields. 

 It places its nest, of grass, on the ground in a 

 meadow or field of grain. From its habits it is 

 known also as the land rail. 



PURPLE GALLINULE 

 (lonornis martinica) 



Adult male and female — Head, neck, and lower parts, slaty purple, 

 darkest on the abdomen ; upper parts, olive-green, changing to 

 blue toward the purple of the lower parts ; sides and lining of 

 the wing, greenish blue ; wings, brighter green than back, and 

 shaded with blue ; crissum, white ; frontal shield, blue ; bill, red, 

 tipped with yellow ; iris, crimson ; legs and feet, yellowish. 



