rWn 
/a) 
Florida 
Faxon is very sure that he heard a Florida Gellinule 
G-a^j^inules 
• 
call in the Reservoir pond one day (May 13th) last year. This 
season he saw one there on the 9th of May and on several 
occasions since. To-day we heard and saw two, a male and 
female, doubtless mated birds as they were both in the same 
place, a long, narrow belt of button bushes intermingled witi 
cat-tail flags. The male was very bold and fearless, showing 
himslef freely outside the bushes, frequently swimming out 
into the middle of a broad space of open water and twice 
crossing it to the shore of the upland where he fed among 
some sparse-growing flags that afforded him no real conceal¬ 
ment. Once he climbed quickly up into a leafless button 
bush and,perching on a branch about three feet above the 
water, spent some time there, preening his feathers and 
dozing, sitting in a crouching attitude with neck drawn in 
and feathers ruffled, looking precisely like a small black 
hen on the roost. 
On the water he was a most graceful and beautiful 
creature, especially when feeding, for then the slender head 
and neck were continually in motion, nodding at each stroke 
of the feet and waving to and fro with sinuous, snake-like 
curves. The scarlet frontal seemed even larger and more 
bri^Hiant than in the bird which we watched in the Fresh Pond 
swamps in 1890. We satisfied ourselves to-day that there is 
no inflation of this part but the red appeared to vary much 
in depth and brilliancy, from time to time, and we sus¬ 
pected that tnese variations were under the bird's control. 
/9 
