FLORIDA GALLIN ULE. 
133 
and extends over a great portion of the southern continent of 
America : in the middle and northern United States it appears 
to be quite accidental, for although a few well authenticated 
instances are known of its having been seen and shot, even as far 
as Albany in the state of New York, it has escaped the researches 
of Wilson, as well as my own. It is by no means, therefore, a 
common bird, and is not known as inhabiting arctic America, 
ranging much less to the north, even as a straggler, than its 
European analogue. Its voice is sonorous, resembling Ka, Ka, Ka! 
The genus Gallinula has the bill shorter than the head, rather 
stout, much higher than broad, tapering, compressed, straight, 
convex at the point: both mandibles are furrowed, the upper 
covers the margins of the lower, is inclined at the point, and 
spreads at base into a naked membrane occupying the forehead. 
This conformation, found also in the Fulicas , to which Linne 
united them, more judiciously than they have since been united 
with the Rails, in which the front is feathered, is in my opinion 
of considerable importance : the lower mandible is navicular: the 
tongue is moderate, compressed, entire. The legs have been 
described among the characters of the family, the anterior toes 
being in all extremely long, flattened beneath, and bordered by a 
narrow membrane, which circumstance alone distinguishes the 
Gallinules from the Coots, that have a broad membrane cut into 
festoons. The hind toe bears on the ground with several joints : 
the nails are compressed, subarched, and rather acute. The 
wings are convex, rounded, the first primary is shorter than the 
fifth, the second and third being longest. The tail is so short as 
hardly to appear from under the coverts. The females scarcely 
differ from the males, but the young are different from the adults. 
They moult annually. 
The family JUacrodactyli, or Rcillidae , when restricted to the five 
genera of which we compose it, (one being Fulica, which nothing 
VOL. iv.— l 1 
