GALLINULA DIMIDIATA.
Y oung F emale.—The top of the head and the back of the neck umber-
brown, variegated with spots of yellowish brown, generally four of these
towards the tip of each feather, two upon the outer, and two upon the inner
vane; the back, the shoulders, the primary and secondary quill coverts, some
of the tertiary quill feathers, the upper and under tail coverts, and the tail
dark liver brown, variegated with slender yellowish brown bars or dots ; the
bars are generally two or three on each feather, more or less undulated, and
mostly interrupted at some part of their course, the variegations on the quill
coverts, tertiary quill feathers, and tail are generally very few in number,
sometimes they are entirely wanting, The chin tawny white, the sides of
the head and neck, the throat, the breast and the belly umber brown, rather
profusely marked with angular or curved bars of deep yellowish brown ; the
ground colour as well as the bars darkest on the sides of the breast and
belly; towards the middle of these regions the tints are lightest, and the
bars are generally indistinct. Primary and secondary quill feathers brownish
red, and the outer vane of the first primary of each wing edged either with
a series of delicate tawny white steaks, or a continuous line of that colour.
The bill and legs dark reddish brown.
While examining this species, and the two others figured in this number, I had constantly
before me twenty other species, which are considered by many authors as belonging either
to Ga llin u la , or to C re x (P o r z a n a , Vieillot); but as I could not discover any characters by
which the limits of these two groupes could be satisfactorily fixed, I have deemed it better
to regard those birds as forming in reality only one groupe. I was, indeed, able to select
out of the whole number four, or rather five species, which differed materially from each
other, viz. F u lic a chloropus, Lin.; R a llu s P o r z a n a , Gm. Lin.; R a llu s crex, Lin.; R a llu s
pu s illu s, Gm. Lin., and the species just described; and I doubt not, had I been unacquainted
with any other species than those, I should have regarded the characters which they individually
presented, as sufficient to warrant my viewing them as all belonging to different
groupes; when, however, I compared their characters with those exhibited by the species
from whence it had been necessary to separate them, in order to have definable peculiarities,
such a number of intermediate modifications were observed, as rendered it impossible to say
between what two species of the whole number the greatest h ia tu s existed, or where the lines
of demarcation could be fixed.
G a llin u la d im id ia ta is by no means a common bird in South Africa, though it is occasionally
procured even in the neighbourhood of Cape Town. I t frequents marshy situations, and
resides among the reeds and long rushes, with which such localities generally abound,
and where stagnant waters occur near its haunts; it is said to enter them, and to swim with
facility, and even occasionally to cross them in quest of its food, which consists of insects,
mollusca, &c. When walking or running it, like G a llin u la chloropus, carries its tail erect.