308 



rufous tinge, the sides of the head paler ; back, scapulars, and inner secondaries deep umber-brown 

 broadly margined with warm clay-ochreous ; rump dull umber-brown slightly tinged with greenish 

 blue ; upper tail-coverts and tail like the back, but with narrow margins ; quills brown, externally 

 margined with dull bluish green ; wing-coverts like the back, but faintly tinged with greenish ; chin, 

 upper throat, and centre of the breast and abdomen white; lower throat, sides of neck, breast, and 

 flanks warm ochreous clay, which becomes rather more rufous on the under tail-coverts ; thighs to a 

 large extent bluish black; bill and frontal plate reddish horn; iris light brown; legs pale reddish 

 brown. Culmen 1"1, wing 5 - 7o, tail 2'65, tarsus 2'05, middle toe with claw 255, middle claw 0"55. 



The tropical portions of Africa appear to be the true home of this species, whence it very 

 rarely straggles into the Palaearctic Eegion ; but it has been met with often enough to render it 

 necessary to include it in the present work. The first recorded occurrence in Europe appears to 

 be that of a specimen which was obtained near Lucca in the autumn of 1857, and sent to 

 Professor Savi in the flesh, and is now in the Pisa Museum. Since then it has occurred a second 

 time, also in the Lucca district, a specimen having been procured near Massaciuoli on the 20th 

 December 1874 by Count G. Ottolini, who presented it to the Museum attached to the College 

 of Lucca, whence it passed into the national collection at Florence. Dr. Giglioli, who figured 

 this specimen, says that from the state of its plumage it is evident that it was a wild bird, and 

 not one escaped from captivity. It has lately transpired that this Gallinule has also been 

 obtained in Spain as far back as 1854, and was recorded and figured by Don Angel Guirao, 

 under the name of Porphyria variegatus. This gentleman, who (I. c.) gives a detailed description 

 and an excellent plate of this specimen, states that it was obtained in the neighbourhood of the 

 great lake on the south-east coast of Spain known as the " Mar menor," in the autumn of 1854. 

 Eeferring to this specimen, Mr. Howard Saunders writes to me as follows: — "Although I had 

 for years been acquainted with Guirao's plate, the bird therein represented was so evidently a 

 young Porphyrio that for long it never occurred to me to verify the dimensions given and to 

 ascertain if they agreed with the Purple Gallinule. When I did this and found how small a 

 bird it was, it at once occurred to me that it must be the young of Allen's Gallinule ; and when 

 in Spain last May I visited the Museum at Madrid, whither Don Angel Guirao had sent all his 

 rarer birds, and examined the specimen in question, which is, I am sure, an immature Porphyria 

 alleni just acquiring some of the greenish feathers of the adult." 



In Africa this Gallinule ranges tolerably far south, though it does not appear to reach the 

 Cape colony. I possess an immature example, purchased in the market of Alexandria by the 

 late Mr. S. Stafford Allen ; Hedenborg and Von Heuglin met with it on the White Nile ; and 

 the latter, who obtained it on the Bahr-el-ghazel and the swamps of the Eeg lake, adds that it 

 occurs sparingly in Abyssinia. I do not find any record of its occurrence in North-west Africa ; 

 but it has been obtained on the Gold Coast and in Senegal. Mr. R. B. Sharpe states (Ibis, 

 1870, p. 488) that one was sent to Mr. Swanzy from Fantee; Reichenow obtained it in the 

 Camaroon delta ; Thompson recorded it from the Niger ; Du Chaillu procured it on the Camma 

 river, Monteiro at Pembe ; and Professor Barboza du Bocage says that it inhabits Loango and 

 Angola. The late Mr. C. J. Andersson also sent home two examples, shot on the 5th February 

 1867 at Ondonga, where, he adds, it was evidently scarce. 



I may here mention that, according to Vernon Harcourt, it occurs in Madeira, though 



