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FLORIDA GALLINULE. 
that both the American and Javan species differ from the common 
kind in having it much wider, and differently shaped : in the 
American it extends still further back, and is cut somewhat 
square behind, whilst the Javan has it exactly rounded: in the 
European it is much less extended, narrow, and comparatively 
acute. In point of form, markings, proportions of the primaries, 
and every other particular we could think of, we have been 
unable to find any distinction, however trifling, between the three 
species. 
The genus Gallinule, restrained within its just limits,* is a 
small group composed of but five or six species spread over all 
the warm and temperate climates of the globe, and exceedingly 
similar in form and colours : only one, that figured by Wilson, 
assumes the brilliant vesture of its near relations the Potphyriones, 
for which reason some authors have considered it as one of them. 
Together with the Rails, the Coots, and some others it forms the 
natural family Macrodactyli, ( Pallidae ,) and is more aquatic in its 
habits than many web-footed birds. Unlike the Coots, however, 
the Gallinules dislike salt or brackish water, and confine them¬ 
selves to fresh, and to rivers and streams especially, and they 
are solitary, or at most the hen is seen with her family, like 
the Gallinaceous birds of that sex. Being chiefly nocturnal, the 
Gallinules hide carefully by day among reeds and other aquatic 
plants; and even in a state of captivity they are so remarkable 
for this habit, that some which I kept in a yard would take 
advantage of every hiding-place to escape the eye of man. It was 
only at the approach of night that they would willingly display 
on the water their graceful evolutions, swimming in circles, and 
often striking the water with their tails. From time to time 
* The greater part of authors, and among them Latham and Temminck, improperly 
unite the Short-billed Rails with them. 
