Eecs. 
Bay 
COMMON GALLINULE. Grass If. 
Willughby w his description takes no notice of 
the beautiful olive gloss of the plumage of these 
birds; nor that the bill of the male assumes a 
fuller and brighter red in the courting season. 
It gets its food on grassy banks, and borders 
near fresh waters, and in the very waters, if 
they be weedy. It builds* upon low trees and 
shrubs. by the water side; breeding twice or 
thrice in the summer; and when the young are 
grown up, drives them away to shift for them- 
selves. They lay seven eggs of a dirty white 
color, thinly spotted with rust-color. It strikes 
with its bill like a hen; and in the spring has a 
shrill call. In flying it hangs down its legs; in 
running often flirts up its tail, and shews the 
white feathers. We may observe, that the bot- 
toms of its toes are so very flat and broad (to 
enable it to swim) that it seems the bird that 
connects the cloven-footed aquatics with the 
next tribe, the fin-toed. 
In the days of moated houses, they were very 
frequent about the moats. They possibly might 
be domesticated, for a pair in my grounds, 
never failed appearing when I called my ducks 
to feed, and partook before me of the corn. 
* It often builds among bull-rushes, which-it treads down till 
the nest reaches the bottom of the water, to the depth of nearly 
three feet, allowing merely the part on which the eggs are depo- 
sited to remain dry above the surface. Ep. 
