268 BALLID^ POEPHYEIO 



Orange Eiver Colony — Kroonstad (Symonds) ; Transvaal — Potchef- 

 stroom (Ayres) ; Bechuanaland — Botletli Eiver (Bryden), Nocana, 

 near Lake Ngami (Fleck) ; German South-west Africa — Oman- 

 bonde, Ondonga and Okavango Eiver (Andersson). 



Habits. — The King Eeed Hen is found in vleis and swamps 

 where there is plenty of rushes and reeds, among which it lies con- 

 cealed during the greater part of the day. In the early morning and 

 the evening it may sometimes be seen in the open searching for its 

 food. This consists, according to Andersson, of the seeds of aquatic 

 plants, small fresh water snails and fish eggs, though Ayres and 

 other observers state that the contents of the stomachs examined 

 by them were entirely of vegetable origin — shoots and seeds of 

 reeds and other water plants. Like most birds of this family it is 

 a poor flyer and is seldom flushed, but on the other hand it runs 

 and dives with great ease and rapidity. Its note, according to 

 Ayres, is quaint and unmusical. Layard found it nesting among 

 the reeds on the Berg Eiver, and states that the clutch consists of 

 from six to ten eggs. Stark found two nests close to the Tugela 

 River in Natal, about twenty-five miles from its source, on October 

 12th. They were placed in a vlei of about twenty acres in extent 

 in the middle of a clump of reeds, where they were not very thick, 

 about fifty yards from the shore in water about three feet deep. 

 The half dead reeds in the centre of the clump had been broken 

 down, and on them the ne&t of reed stems lined with fine dry grass 

 was built. It was not very large or compact, the top being about 

 nine inches above the level of the water and about nine or ten 

 inches across ; the hollow on the top where the eggs lay was very 

 slight ; the eggs were three in number in one case and four in 

 the other, and were considerably incubated. 



Eggs in the South African Museum, obtained, probably from the 

 Berg Eiver, by Mr. Layard, are ovals, somewhat elongated and 

 pointed: they are pale brown, not very thickly spotted with fine 

 points and larger irregular blotches of darker purplish and rufous 

 brown. They measure about 2-2 x 1'48. 



684. Porphyrio alleni. Allen's Beed Hen. 



Porphyrio alleni, Thompson, Ann. Mag. N. H. x. p. 204 (1842) ; Gurney, 

 in Andersson's B. Dainaral. p. 327 (1872) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii, 

 p. 307, pi. 502 (1880) ; Sliarpe, ed. Layard' a B. S. Afr. p. 621 (1884) ; 

 Aijres, Ibis, 1885, p. 346; Shelley, B. Afr. i, p. 175 (1896); Marshall, 

 Ibis, 1900, p. 270; Beichenoiu, Vog. Afr. i, p. 292 (1900). 



Porphyriola alleni, Sharpe, Cat. B. M. xxiii, p. 187 (1894) ; Dates, Cat. 

 B.Eggs,i,-p. 126(1901). 



