THE AUK: 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 
ORNITHOLOGY. 
vol. viir. January, 1891. 
No. I. 
A STUDY OF FLORIDA GALLINULES, WITH SOME 
NOTES ON A NEST FOUND AT CAMBRIDGE, 
MASSACHUSETTS. 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
Early in June, 1SS9, while wading about in the Fresh Pond 
swamps on the outskirts of Cambridge, I heard one afternoon an 
unfamiliar bird cry. It was a succession of hen-like cucks given 
slowly, but in connected series, and sometimes ending with a pro- 
longed, drawling Z’ee-ar-r, krek -ar-r, suggestive of discontent, if 
not positive suffering, on the part of the bird. The voice was so 
loud and strong that it might have been heard nearly or quite 
half a mile away. Several times afterward during the next few 
days this strange cry was heard, always in the same place — a bed 
of cat-tail flags growing near the middle of a wide, flooded 
meadow. In company with Mr. Faxon and Mr. Torrey I made 
repeated efforts to find the bird but we failed to obtain any clue 
to its identity. 
It was not until the evening of May 18, 1890, that we again 
heard this mysterious cry, this time in a swamp about an eighth of 
a mile from the marsh just mentioned. It was repeated at 
frequent intervals, and at length was answered by a second bird 
which Mr. Frank M. Chapman, who was with us at the time, 
at once declared to be a Florida Gallinule. The fact that this 
second cry was uttered immediately after the first, apparently in 
reply to it, and that, while differing in form, it resembled 
287. “ Catching a Tartar By Frank S. Wright. Ibid., p. 22. — A '~yT 
Florida Gal linxd^Jfca ught by the lower mandible by a mussel. 0 . T'O- 
