314 



greyish white; proximal under tail-coverts white with a deep black tuft in the centre; flanks marked 

 with long white stripes ; basal portion of the bill and frontal plate bright red, the front of the bill 

 yellow; iris red; legs dull green with a red garter above the tibio-tarsal joint. Total length about 

 13 inches, culmen with frontal plate 1*34, wing 6 - 7, tail 2 - 95, tarsus T85. 



Adult Male. Resembles the female ; but in a series I find that the males run smaller in size and a trifle 

 duller in colour. 



Young. Crown, sides of the head, and hind neck olive-brown, the sides of the neck similar, but tinged with 

 grey ; lores whitish ; chin and throat white ; lower throat and underparts dark ash-grey, the feathers 

 tipped with white; lower abdomen rusty grey; the under tail-coverts washed with rusty yellowish; 

 upper parts dull olive-brown; quills dark brown, the inner ones margined with olivaceous brown; bill 

 dull yellowish green with an olivaceous tinge, the frontal plate very small ; legs very dull greenish. 



Young in down (Norfolk) . Covered with hair-like blackish sooty down ; bill and the frontal bare spot red ; 

 the sides of the head blue, and the chin and upper throat with white points to the down ; legs dark 

 greyish, almost blackish grey ; iris greyish brown. 



The Moorhen, or common Gallinule, is very generally distributed throughout Europe up to 

 about 60° N. lat., being a migrant in the upper portion of the zone it inhabits, and a resident in 

 some of the other portions. In Asia, Africa, and America there are very closely allied forms 

 which scarcely deserve specific rank, respecting which closer details are given below ; but 

 specimens from all parts of the Western Palsearctic Region do not differ appreciably inter se. 



In Great Britain the present species is resident and very generally distributed, and breeds 

 in suitable localities from the extreme south up to the extreme north, the Outer Hebrides, and 

 Orkney. 



In Ireland, as in England, the Moorhen is found throughout the country. It does not 

 visit Greenland or Iceland ; and Captain Feilden states that it is only an uncertain wanderer to 

 Feeroe, where Miiller records its occurrence in December 1845, February 1854, and in June 1860. 

 According to Mr. Collett it breeds here and there on the coasts of Norway, but is nowhere 

 numerous. Its nest has been discovered near Stavanger, at Etne in Hardanger ; and it has been 

 observed in the breeding-season on the Trondhjems fiord. One was shot at Bergen in 1870 ; and 

 individuals have been obtained at Bodo in 1828, at Christiansand, at Skien, in December 1862, 

 and at Christiania in November 1866. Nilsson speaks of it as being a comparatively rare bird 

 in Sweden, where it arrives in April, and leaves in September or October, and is found in Skane 

 as well as in Upper Sweden. It breeds in several parts of Skane and near Gothenburg. On one 

 occasion only has it been obtained in Finland, in 1842, when one was captured in Kyrkslatt 

 parish, Nyland, and passed into the hands of the late Magnus von Wright, who placed it in the 

 Finnish collection at Helsingfors. In Bussia it does not range far north. Mr. Sabanaeff informs 

 me that it has once occurred in the Jaroslaf Government, and it breeds in the south-eastern 

 portion of Vologda. It is not rare in the Moscow Government ; and Bogdanoff says that it is 

 found along the Volga, and in small numbers in the Kazan Government ; and Artzibascheff 

 records it as being common in reedy districts on the Sarpa, where it breeds. In Poland, Mr. 

 Taczanowski writes, it is everywhere common, arriving in March and remaining to the end of 



