FLORIDA GALLINULE. 513 
Gallinula galeata, WHEATON, Field Notes, i, 1861, 153; Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1860, 369, 
378; Reprint, 1861, 11, 20; Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep. for 1874, 573; Re- 
print, 1875, 13.—LaNnGpon, Cat. Birds of Cin., 1877, 16; Revised List, Journ. Cin. 
Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1879, 184; Reprint, 18; Summer Birds, ib., ili, 1880, 228. 
Plorida Gallinule, TREMBLY, Field Notes, i, 1861, 180.—WHEATON, Bull. Nutt. Club, ii, 
1877, 83. 
Crex galeata, LICHTENSTEIN, Verz. Doubl., 1823, 80. 
Gallinula chloropus, BONAPARTE, Syn., 1828, 336. 
Gallinula galeata, BONAPARTE, Am. Orn., iv, 1832, 128. 
Head, neck and under-parts, grayish-black, darkest on the former, paler or whitening 
on the belly; back brownish-olive; wings and tail dusky; crissum, edge of wing, and 
stripes on the flanks, white; bill, frontal plate, and ring around tibiw red, the former 
tipped with yellow; tarsi and toes greenish; 12-15 long; wing, 64-74; tail, 34; gape 
of bill, about 14; tarsus, about 2. 
Habitat, United States, southerly. Resident in the Southern States. Northward to 
Massachusetts rarely, to Canada West, Kansas, Minnesota, and San Francisco. West 
Indies. Central America. South America to Chill. 
The Florida Gallinule, first noticed as an Ohio bird by Dr. Kirtland, 
quoted on page 218, is a not uncommon summer resident in extensive 
swamps and marshes throughout the State. It is equally retiring in its 
habits with the Rails, but unlike them it often takes to water from choice, 
and swims with ease and buoyancy. When swimming it presents a very 
duckish or rather cootish appearance, its body being vastly distended by 
large air sacks, which inflated change the aspect of the bird entirely. 
On its migrations it sometimes makes its appearance in barnyards, 
associating with domestic fowls, and in other unexpected places. 
A nest and nine eggs of this bird were taken at Sandusky Bay, in 1874, 
by my friend,C.J.Orton. These eggs were brownish: buff, rather thickly 
spotted with dark reddish-brown and umber. In shape they were an 
elongated oval. 
Mr. Langdon (Summer Birds, |. c.) gives the following account of this 
species as observed by him in Ottawa county: 
‘A very common species, breeding abundantly in the more open portions of the 
marsh. The nesis are situated amongst the ‘saw-grass,’ and constructed of its dried 
blades. Their height varies, some almost resting on the water, while others are placed 
a foot or more above it and have an incline eight or ten inches in width, made of dried 
grass, extending from the water’s edge, which makes them a conspicuous object where 
the surrounding vegetation is not too dense. The dozen or so sets of eggs taken were 
in various stages of incubation, and a few young were observed following their parents. 
The young, when a day or two old, are about the size of a newly hatched domestic 
chicken, and when found in the open water are easily captured; they prosent a curious 
sight paddling for dear life, with their bright red and orange bills standing out in strong 
contrast with their sooty-black, down-covered bodies.” 
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