FLORIDA GALLINULE. 515 
than in the other allied species. The under tail-coverts are 
also deep black, with the lateral pure white: the white also 
lines the wings externally from all round the shoulder, almost, 
but not quite, to the tip of the outer quill, which is white on 
half the outer part of its narrow web: a few white longi- 
tudinal spots may likewise be seen on the under wing-coverts, 
and very large and conspicuous ones along the flanks, and a 
few whitish streaks mixed with the plumbeous on the belly. 
The wings are nearly seven inches long, and the tail more 
than three. The feet are greenish, with a red ring like a 
garter surrounding the tibia: the bare space on this is nearly 
three-quarters, and the tarsus two inches and three-eighths: 
the middle toe without the nail is more than two and a half, 
and the nail itself three-quarters: the lateral toes measure 
more than two, and the hind, one and an eighth. The sexes 
are precisely alike. 
The little that is known of the habits of this gallinule does 
not allow us to doubt that it has all those of its close analogues. 
It is common in Florida and Jamaica on the streams and pools, 
and extends over a great portion of the southern continent of 
America : in the middle and northern United States it appears 
to be quite accidental, for although a few well-authenticated 
instances are known of its having been seen and shot, even 
as far as Albany in the State of New York, it has escaped the 
researches of Wilson as well as my own. It is by no means, 
therefore, a common bird, and is not known as inhabiting 
Arctic America, ranging much less to the north, even as a 
straggler, than its Huropean analogue. Its voice is sonorous, 
resembling ka, ka, ka. 
The genus Gallinula hasthe bill shorter than the head, rather 
stout, much higher than broad, tapering, compressed, straight, 
convex at the point: both mandibles are furrowed, the upper 
covers the margins of the lower, is inclined at the point, and 
spreads at base into a naked membrane occupying the forehead. 
This conformation, found also in the /’ulzce, to which Linné 
united-them, more judiciously than they have since been united 
