Having studied the habits of this bird under every advantage in Louisiana, and especially in the neighbourhood of New Orleans, and the mouths of the Mississippi, I will now, good Reader, place before you the results of my observation. In the summer months, the Purple Gallinules remove with their broods to the prairies or large savannahs bordering the bayous or lakes on which they have bred, and remain in those places, which are generally covered with thick and tall grass, until the beginning of September, when the vegetation having been dried up by the intense heat and drought, neither food nor sufficient concealment can be obtained. The young birds usually abandon these plains first, and while the colour of their plumage is still green, instead of purplish-blue, which tint, however, is assumed before the return of spring. During all this while, its notes are as frequently heard as during the breeding season. They resemble the delicate whistling sounds of the Blue-winged Teal during its residence with us. At this season also its flesh is best, although it never equals that of the Freshwater Marsh-hen, Rallus elegans, or of the Sora Rail, Rallus carolinus.
On the approach of winter, all the Purple Gallinules leave the savannahs, and betake themselves to the immediate vicinity of ponds, bayous, or rivers, where through experience they become shy, vigilant, and cunning. They seldom remove from one place to another, or travel at all, unless by night, although in sequestered parts they feed both on land and on the water by day.
The Purple Gallinule breeds at a remarkably early period of the year. I have found young birds in their jetty down clothing in February, and they have been observed in the same month by the keepers of the lighthouse at the south-west Pass of the Mississippi, at Key West, and in other places. The parent birds are sometimes so very intent on saving their young, as to suffer themselves to be caught. At this period their calls are almost incessantly heard during the whole night, and are elicited during the day by any musical or remarkable noise. The nest is generally placed among a kind of rushes that are green at all seasons, round, very pithy, rarely more than five feet high, and grow more along the margins of ponds than in the water itself. The birds gather many of them, and fasten them at the height of two or three feet, and there the nest is placed. It is composed of the most delicate rushes, whether green or withered, and is quite as substantial as that of the Common Gallinule, flattish, having an internal diameter of eight or ten inches, while the entire breadth is about fifteen. The eggs, which are from five to seven, rarely more, are very similar to those of the Common Gallinule, being of a light greyish-yellow, spotted with blackish-brown. The young are at first quite black, and covered with down. They are fully fledged by the first of June, when, as I have said, they and their parents remove to the wet savannahs in the neighbourhood.
The jerking motions of the tail of this bird, whenever it is disturbed, or attracted by any remarkable object, are very quick, and so often repeated as to have a curious appearance. It runs with great speed, and dives with equal address, often moving off under water with nothing but the bill above. The lightness and ease with which it walks on the floating plants are surprising, for in proceeding they scarcely produce any perceptible disturbance of the water. When swimming in full security, they move buoyantly and gracefully, throwing the head forward at every propelling motion of the feet. The flight of this species is less swift than that of the Common Gallinule, or of the Rails, unless when it is travelling far, when it flies high, and advances in a direct course by continued flappings; but when it is in its breeding or feeding grounds, its flight is slow and short, seldom exceeding thirty or forty yards, and with the legs hanging down; and it alights among the herbage with its wings spread upwards in the manner of the Rails. It often alights on the low branches of trees and bushes growing over the water, and walks lightly and gracefully over them.
It is seldom that more than one Purple Gallinule is shot at a time, unless in the beginning of the love season, when the male and female are apt to swim or walk close together. The male at this period is said to be able to inflate the frontal plate while strutting, but I have never been fortunate enough to observe this.
The Purple Gallinule not unfrequently alights on ships at sea. While at the Island of Galveston, on the 26th of April, I was offered several live individuals by the officers of the Boston frigate, which they had caught on board. My friend John Bachman once received three specimens that had been caught three hundred miles from land, one of them having come through the cabin window. He also obtained from the Hon. Mr Poinset a fine specimen caught on board, on the Santee River, in South Carolina, in May. It is easily kept alive if fed with bread soaked in milk; and on this food I have known several that remained in good health for years. In Louisiana, where it is called Rale Bleu, its flesh is not held in much estimation, but is used by the negroes for making gombo.
My friend Bachman considers this species as rather scarce in South Carolina and Georgia, but states that it breeds there, as he has occasionally observed pairs on the head waters or preserves of rice plantations during summer, but never met with any in winter. The extreme limit of its range eastward is the neighbourhood of Boston, where a few individuals have been procured.
I think I may safely tell you that the figure of the Purple Gallinule exhibited in the plate, is the first ever published from a drawing taken from Nature!
Fulica martinica, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 259.
Gallinula martinica, Lath. Ind Ornith. p. 769.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synops. p. 336.