-APPENDIX. 
415 
ORTYGOMETRA TABUENSIS, Gmelin. 
Tabuan Water Crake. 
Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 575, p. 341. 
Tins species is dispersed all over the Australian, Austro- 
Malayan and Pacific regions. Although having such an extensive 
geographical range it is a very difficult species to procure, as 
its favourite haunts, the sedgy and reed covered margins of 
lagoons and rivers, always afford it a tolerably secure retreat on 
the first approach of danger. On Norfolk Island Dr. Metcalfe 
informs me he found an old nest of this species with an egg in it, 
built in rushes, and that it was composed of dead Hags and raised 
above the water similar to that of Porphyria melanolus. The 
egg is oval in form, rounded at each end which are equal in size, 
the texture being fine and slightly glossy, of a very pale creamy- 
brown ground colour, with numerous indistinct fine fleecy 
markings of light chestnut-brown thickly and uniformly dispersed 
over the entire surface of the shell. Length D15 x 0'91 inch. 
Ilab. Australian, Austro-Malayan and Pacific regions. 
PORPHYRIO MELANOTUS, Temminck. 
Black-backed Porphyrio. 
Gould, Ilandbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 563, p. 321. 
This species is dispersed over the greater part of the Australian 
Continent, Tasmania and New Zealand, breeding in swampy 
places, and constructing a nest of dried flags and weeds slightly 
cupped at the top, and placed in rushes in the centre of streams 
several feet above the water. Dr. Metcalfe informs me that 
on Norfolk Island the number of eggs laid by this bird for a 
sitting is “ twelve or more,” this is greatly in excess of the number 
laid by the same species in Australia, where five, the usual com¬ 
plement laid, is rarely exceeded. An average specimen taken 
by Dr. Metcalfo on the 2nd of November, 1889, is ovoid in form, 
of a yellowish-brown ground colour, with large irregular shaped 
