BLACK MOOR-HEN. 
Eggs. Clutch, seven to ten ; smooth and glossy ; ground-colour buff ; blotched and spotted 
with purplish-brown over the entire surface. Axis, 53 to 54 mm ; diameter, 36. 
Breeding season. November (Belcher) to January (Campbell). 
Mr. Charles Belcher, writing from Victoria, says : “ Unlike Trihonyx ventralis 
this bird is a stationary species. Year after year the same birds will, if unmolested, 
breed In the same patch of reeds. It is far from being a common bird in Victoria, 
although when once one knows the localities it haunts, no bird is easier to find. 
They bred in the swamp between the boat sheds at Princes’ Bridge, Melbourne, 
till it was filled in when Alexandra Avenue was made. They occur at intervals 
along several of the rivers and creeks west of Port Philip ; and wherever the bird 
is found it may be considered as a breeding species. I found two nests on 
November 4th, 1893, in a reed-bed on the banks of a salt creek near Geelong ; 
one contained nine eggs and the other eight, all hard set. The eggs vary a 
good deal in markings and one variety closely resembles the egg of Porphyrio 
melanotus. 
J. Gould* says : “ When disturbed, it readily eludes pursuit by running 
with great swiftness into a place of safety. It swims with considerable ease and 
buoyancy, and its food consists of various aquatic insects and small shelled 
mollusks.” 
Captain S. A. White says : “ I have met with this bird on nearly aU the 
permanent water-courses and lakes in South Australia : they are very numerous 
on the lower reaches and swamps of the River Murray. Their call is a very 
harsh, gratmg one ; and they are very swift of foot, darting away to the rushes 
or tangled mass of roots on the banks of the river. They nest in the roots of 
upturned trees or in the debris brought down by fiood water. The eggs are 
generally 6 to 8 in number, but in 1908 I took 10 eggs from a nest.” 
The bird figured and described was collected on the Richmond River, New 
South Wales, in September, 1905. 
* Handb. B. Austr., II., p. 329 (1865). 
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