40 BULLETIN 128, II. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



FLORIDA GALLINULE. Gallinula galeata (Lichtenstein). 



Range. — North and South America; north to California, Minnesota, 

 and Quebec; south through the West Indies and Central America 

 to Chile and Argentina. 



Breeding range. — The Florida gallinule has a wide distribution in 

 the Western Hemisphere, breeding throughout the West Indies and 

 in South America south to La Concepcion, Chile (Gould and Darwin), 

 and to Buenos Aires, Argentina (White) . It is almost entirely absent 

 from northwestern Colombia and the whole of Panama and Costa 

 Rica, but is common in favorable localities of the rest of Middle 

 America north to Tepic and Mazatlan (Lawrence), and to Browns- 

 ville, Tex. 



The summer distribution in the United States is peculiar, com- 

 prising three distinct areas. The largest area occupies the district 

 from the Ohio River and the mouth of the Delaware north to Province- 

 town, Mass. (Small), St. Albans, Vt. (Woodworth), Montreal, Canada 

 (Win tie), Toronto, Ont. (Nash), Lansing, Mich. (Cole), Kelley Brook, 

 Wis. (Schoenebeck) , and Minneapolis, Minn. (Moore); and west to 

 Valentine and North Platte, Nebr. (Bruner, Wolcott, and Swenk). 

 The second area includes Florida and the Gulf coast west to Louisi- 

 ana and north to Rodney, Miss. (Mabbett), and to Charleston, S. C. 

 (Wayne) This Florida area connects southward with Cuba and the 

 Greater Antilles, where the species is common, but to the eastward 

 in the Bahamas the bird seems to be rare and local, though it has been 

 recorded at Nassau (Bonhote), Watlings (Todd), and at Inagua 

 (Cory). It breeds rarely in Bermuda, and additional migrants 

 appear there in the fall (Reid). The remaining area is western 

 California from Escondido (Sharp) to Sacramento (Ridgway) . 



Each of these three areas is separated from its nearest neighbor 

 by several hundred miles in which the species is rare or unknown. 

 Between the first and second is an isolated breeding colony at Lake 

 Ellis, N. C. (Philipp). The birds that breed at Woodward, Okla. 

 (Lantz), may constitute a far removed outpost from the lower Mis- 

 souri contingent, while the few individuals nesting in the vicinity of 

 Tucson, Ariz. (Rhoads), are separated by many miles of desert from 

 their nearest neighbors in southern California. 



A few Florida gallinules have wandered north to Halifax, N. S., 

 November 18, 1888 (Austen); Kentville, N. S., September 20, 1886 

 (Chamberlain); St. John, N. B., September, 1880 (Brewster); Calais, 

 Me. (Boardman) ; Quebec City, Canada, May 28, 1892 (Dionne); 

 Beaumaris, Ont. (Fleming); Bay City, Mich., May 2, 1891 (Eddy); 

 near Vermilion, S. Dak., late April, 1899 (Sweet) ; Colorado Springs, 

 Colo., May 9, 1882 (Allen and Brewster) ; and near Fort Verde, Ariz., 

 September 26, and November 1, 1884 (Mearns). 



