PURPLE GALLINULE. 131 



individuals by the officers of the Boston frigate, which they had caught on 

 board. My friend John Bachman once received three specimens that had 

 been caught three hundred miles from land, one of them having come 

 through the cabin window. He also obtained from the Hon. Mr. Poinset 

 a fine specimen caught on board, on the Santee river, in South Carolina, in 

 May. It is easily kept alive if fed with bread soaked in milk; and on this 

 food I have known several that remained in good health for years. In 

 Louisiana, where it is called Rale Bleu, its flesh is not held in much estima- 

 tion, but is used by the negroes for making gombo. 



My friend Bachman considers this species as rather scarce in South 

 Carolina and Georgia, but states that it breeds there, as he has occasionally 

 observed pairs on the head waters or preserves of rice plantations during 

 summer, but never met with any in winter. The extreme limit of its range 

 eastward is the neighbourhood of Boston, where a few individuals have been 

 procured. 



Purple Gallinole, Gallinula Porphyria, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. ix. p. 67. 



Gallinula martinica, Bonap. Syn., p. 336. 



Pcrple Gallincle, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 221. 



Purple Gallinule, Gallinula martinica, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 37. 



Male, 131, 211 



Breeds and resides from Texas to South Carolina. Stragglers are seen as 

 far as Massachusetts. Up the Mississippi to Memphis. Rather common in 

 Louisiana and Florida. 



Frontal plate blue; bill carmine, tipped with yellow; head, fore part of 

 neck, and breast, purplish-blue; abdomen and tibial feathers dusky; sides 

 and lower wing-coverts green; lower tail-coverts white; upper parts oliva- 

 ceous-green; sides of neck, and outer part of wings, greenish-blue. 



Weight of one individual 7\ oz., of another 8^, both males; of a fourth 7 

 oz.; of a fifth 5\\ and of a sixth only 4|. 



The female is somewhat smaller, but similar to the male, the frontal plate 

 is less extended, and the tints of the plumage a little less vivid. 



The young are at first covered with black down. When fledged they are 

 olivaceous on the upper parts, dull purple beneath; the bill dull green. 

 After the first moult, the bill is light carmine, greenish-yellow at the end, 

 the head dark purple; the plumage coloured as above described, but less 

 brilliant, the tarsi and toes greenish-yellow. 



In a male bird the tongue is 10 twelfths of an inch long, sagittate at the 

 base, with conical papillae, of which the outer are larger, slightly concave 

 above, horny towards the end, which is thin, rather obtuse, and lacerated. 

 On the middle line of the roof of the mouth anteriorly is a row of large 



