PLATE XII. 



GENUS TRIBONYX (Du Bus). 



THE two known species of this genus differ vastly in their habits and economy from other Gallinules, 

 being more terrestrial than the members of the genus Porphyrio. This modification in habit gives 

 them the longer tarsi and shorter toes that are best suited to wander over plains and open pasturage, 

 instead of keeping to the water or the river banks. 



TRIBONYX MORTIERII (Du Bus). 



MORTIEES TRIBONYX. 



MOBTIEB'S TRIBONYX is plentiful in Victoria and Tasmania, but owing to the extreme shyness of 

 its disposition, it is a work of the utmost difficulty to get sight of it, for it delights in inaccessible 

 haunts among marshy lands and the sides of rivers. 



Gould saw it every day while staying at New Norfolk, Tasmania, for there it frequently left its 

 sedgy retreat to walk about the garden, holding its tail erect like the common hen ; but even here the 

 greatest care was necessary to get a sight of it, for at the slightest suspicion of noise the bird would 

 vanish with extraordinary quickness into some thicket, from which it would not emerge till all apparent 

 cause for alarm was over. 



The chest and wing muscles of this bird are so feebly developed in proportion to its size that 

 it could not depend upon flight for safety, or even constant locomotion ; but to make up for this weakness, 

 the legs and thighs are very large and strong, giving it great running power. In habit and economy the 

 Tribonyx approaches very closely to the European Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), except that it does not 

 dive and swim like that bird. It is easily caught with a common horsehair noose. 



The male bird weighs about three pounds ; the stomachs are very thick and muscular, and shew 

 by their contents that aquatic plants, insects, and gravel are the foods on which they subsist. 



The nest is a bundle of rushes placed on the edge of a stream, and usually contains seven eggs 

 of a stone colour, marked all over with thinly dispersed, irregular shaped, and variously sized spots and 

 blotches of dark chestnut brown, also very minutely freckled with the same colour. Length, 2^ inches ; 

 breadth, 1^ inch. 



The sexes are alike, except that the female is smaller and less brilliant than her mate. 



All the upper surfaces greyish olive, washed with chesnut brown on the head, back of the neck, 

 back, and the tips of the secondaries ; primaries, blackish brown ; tail, black ; under surfaces, bluish slate 

 colour, becoming black on the abdomen and under tail-coverts ; flank feathers largely tipped with white, forming 

 a conspicuous mark on either side ; thighs, purplish grey ; irides, orange-red ; bill, greenish-yellow ; legs 

 and feet, leaden-yellow. 



Habitats : Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania. 



