414 GALLINULE. 



on water insects and worms. The Mussulmans eat this bird, and the 

 lower classes of Hindoos give it to women when sick ; the way they 

 are taken is by placing tame ones as a decoy, near the water, in 

 cages, so constructed as to admit of a wild one entering, but not to 

 return. I observe, in a drawing of one of these birds, that the base 

 of the bill above, and forehead, are both red, of which colour I 

 suspect them to be in the breeding season. 



I received a specimen of this from the Cape of Good Hope ; it 

 was attempted to be brought to England alive, being tolerably 

 familiar, but died in the passage. Besides the above, we have reason 

 to think that there are further Varieties, as I have met with repre- 

 sentations of them in two different sets of Chinese drawings, in both 

 of which the forehead was of a deep red; bill and legs green; the 

 quills and tail dusky black. Kolben mentions one, as common at 

 the Cape of Good Hope,* but merely says, that it is black, and of 

 the size of the Common European Species. This is probably one of 

 the above Varieties. 



22. -CARTHAGENA GALLINULE. 



Gallinula Carthagena, Ind. Orn. ii. 767. 

 Fulica Carthagena, Lin. i. 258. Gm. Lin. i. 700. 

 Rallus rufus Americanus, Bart. Trav. p. 294 ? 

 Carthagena Gallinule, Gen. Syn. v. 252. 



SIZE of the Coot. Forehead bare, and blue; the body wholly 

 rufous. — Inhabits Carthagena, and, if the same bird with the Greater 

 brown Rail of Bartram, is found in Pennsylvania in spring, coming 

 from the south ; and after breeding and rearing the young, disappears. 



* Kolben, Cup. Engl. Ed. ii. 140. 



