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Genus PORZANA. 



Rallus apud Brisson, Orn. v. p. 155 (1760). 



Gallinula apud Latham, Ind. Orn. ii. p. 772 (1790). 



Porzana, Vieillot, Analyse, p. 61 (1816). 



Ortygometra apud Leach, Syst. Cat. M. & B. Brit. Mus. p. 34 (1816). 



Zapomia apud Leach, ut supra (1816). 



Octogometra apud Forster, Syn. Cat. Brit. B. p. 27 (1817). 



Zaporina apud Forster, op., cit. p. 59 (1817). 



Crew apud Lichtenstein, Verz. Doubl. p. 80 (1823). 



Phalaridion apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 173 (1829). 



Phalaridium apud Meves, Journ. far Orn. 1875, p. 433. 



This genus is represented in the Palsearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental, Australian, Nearctic, and 

 Neotropical Regions, three species being found as residents in the Western Palaearctic Region. 



They frequent damp, swampy localities similar to those where the Water-Rails are to be 

 met with, and resemble those birds much in their general habits. They are extremely secretive, 

 and are hard to drive out of the dense reed-thickets where they usually live, and through which 

 they run and slip with ease. They swim with facility, and sit lightly and gracefully on the 

 water. They feed on aquatic insects, snails, worms, &c, and to some extent also on vegetable 

 matter, and usually obtain their food in shallow water, or on the edges of ditches, or in muddy, 

 damp localities. They make a bulky, carelessly built nest of dried reeds and aquatic herbage, 

 and deposit several dark ochreous or olivaceous-ochreous eggs, spotted and marked with dark 

 rufous or dull dark brown. 



An American species (Porzana Carolina) has been included in the British list on the strength 

 of an occurrence said to have taken place near Newbury, Berks, in October 1864 ; but it certainly 

 appears to me premature to admit it on such slight grounds. 



Porzana maruetta, the type of the genus, has the bill rather shorter than the head, higher 

 than broad at the base, tapering, compressed, the tip acute ; nasal groove long, the nostrils 

 linear, oblong, median ; wings rather short, broad, concave, the first quill shorter than the fifth, 

 the second longest ; tail short, rounded, the feathers soft and weak ; lower part of the tibia bare ; 

 tarsus rather long, scutellate ; toes very long and slender ; claws long, slender, curved, tapering, 

 acute. 



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