Habits of the Purple Gallinule (lonornis martinica'f, — While spending 
the spring and summer of 1887 at Yemassee, S. C., I found the Purple 
Gallinule to be the most common and characteristic of the birds breeding 
there. The locality where I found them was an old rice plantation of 
about six or seven hundred acres. This abandoned rice plantation is 
used as a reservoir, or, in local parlance, a ‘backwater.’ It is kept filled 
with water, to flow the rice of adjoining fields, and is usually covered 
with water to the: depth of three to four leet. The whole ‘backwater’ is 
overgrown with rushes, the broad-leafed pond lily {Nymfhma odorata) and 
the Nelumbium (Cyamus flavicomus). I found the Gallinules very com- 
mon — there must have been at least five hundred pairs of birds. It was a 
very beautiful sight to see the graceful creatures walking over the large 
leaves of the pond lily, every now and then flirting their tails, or holding 
their wings over their heads, as they walked from one leaf to another. 
When flying, chasing one another, the legs are always hanging down, and 
the birds are cackling the whole time while engaged in this sport. They 
have several very peculiar call-notes, one which is very guttural, is to be 
heard incessantly. They are exceedingly tame one can almost step on 
them before they 'take wing. If wounded they dive immediately, and 
remain under water for fully five minutes at a time, and it is folly to 
waste time in following them up, as they rise with only the point of the 
bill out of water. The soft parts in life are as follows : — Crown shield, 
azure blue, legs bright yellow, the tip of bill greenish yellow, and the 
middle of bill bright red. # 
The nests are commenced about May 5. They are built in rushes, 
invariably over water, and are made of half decayed rushes. The nest is 
substantially built, and well secured to the rushes which grow in the 
water. The birds have regular trodden paths leading to their nests, and, 
strange to say, there are always three or four nests in all stages of comple- 
tion near each nest which contains eggs. The eggs are from four to nine, 
almost invariably six. They measure about 1.60 X X-IS inches, and are 
pale cream color or yellowish, spotted with brown or purplish. They 
vary in size and markings ; some of the eggs I collected are larger than 
typical specimens of the Florida Gallinule, and some as small as large 
specimens of the Virginia Rail. I never saw a Gallinule sitting— day or 
night, rain or shine— and I really believe the eggs are hatched by the 
decomposition of the materials which comj ose the nest. The young can 
easily be raised, and become perfectly tame. The breeding season is a 
long one, as I had a very young bird in the downy stage sent me alive on 
September 17. Its appearance is as follows : Upperparts glossy black, the 
lower parts sooty, the throat, cheeks, and top of head with silvery white 
hairs. The base of bill is yellowish, the lower mandible, and part of upper 
jet blackwith a white spot, which rises to a point on the tip of upper man- 
dible ;this white. spot resembles ‘white lead.’ The wings are also covered 
with silvery hairs. — Arthur T. Wayne, Charleston, S. C. 
Auk, Y. Jan. 1888 . p. 
1965. Nesting of the Purple Gallinule. By Jas. II. Rachford. Ibid., 
p. 16. Ora, & Qolofirist’s Seml-armuai, Voi. l. 3 
