Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/406

380 the Somersetshire and other British-taken Purple Gallinules, Porphyrio veterum, against the imputation of being escaped birds and not boná fide wild visitants to our islands. From my experience of the habits of this species as observed in Spain and Sicily, it seems to me that he is arguing upon erroneous premises, especially as regards its assumed "migratory" instincts. When he says, "Bearing in mind that the birds are migratory, and that the mouth of the Rhone or the coast of Portugal is at no great distance from this country when fairly on the wing," &c., he is doubtless mindful of the exact words of the late M. Favier, and of Colonel Irby, in the 'Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar,' but I imagine that both of them use the expression in a far more limited sense than that in which Mr. Mathew has taken it. From the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, where it occurs in January and February, "doubtless on migration" to several marshes where it is resident throughout the year, is but a few miles, and there is a succession of these as far as the great marshes of the Guadalquiver, which are only seventy miles in a straight line from Gibraltar: whilst from the South of Portugal to Bath or Wells it is thirteen degrees of latitude, as the crow flies, or nearly eight hundred geographical miles! Mr. Mathew may consider this "no great distance for a bird when fairly on the wing," but there are birds, and birds, and the Purple Waterhen is one of those most difficult to flush, and settles down as soon as possible after a short flight, seldom, if ever, (o be flushed again. If a dog has almost got hold of one, it must perforce rise or be "chopped"; but when, after a short flight, it drops down into the sedge, it runs and clambers amongst the reeds, and is seen no more. It would take twenty couple of otter-hounds to thoroughly rout up a marsh of moderate dimensions so as to give any idea of the Porphyrios it might contain; and after working a couple of those marshes the staunchest padk would be pretty well "baked." Again, it will be observed that even its occurrence "on migration " near Gibraltar is in the months of January and February, the very time at which the officers of the garrison and other sportsmen are in the habit of going out shooting, and consequently many a bird might be seen at that time which at others might pass unnoticed; besides which in winter the cover is not so dense. If the bird were really " migratory," in the usual acceptation of the word, it is strange that it should have become scarce or almost extinct in the marshes of the Albufera of Valencia, in those near Murcia, in those of the Prat and the Almenasa, of the Island of Majorca, and other localities. That it is "more abundant in winter," as Von Homeyer says, merely shows that there are naturally more sportsmen about at that season, and that, the sedge being scantier, it is then more easily obtained. My impression, in fact, is that there are few birds which migrate less and are more locally restricted than this species. Nor can I agree to Mr. Mathew's assumption that any one of the captured specimens