PORZANA FLUMINEA, Gowa.
Spotted Water Crake.

Porzana fluminea, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. Dp. 139

 

Tus species, like its representative in the British Islands (Radlus porzana, Linn.), inhabits morasses,
reed-beds, and the neighbourhood of rivers clothed with dense herbage ; hence it is seldom to be seen unless
the greatest trouble and labour be taken to hunt it out from its hiding-place. The uniform grey tint of its
breast and under surface, and its smaller size, are characters by which it may at once be distinguished from
the European species.

The Spotted Water Crake is an inhabitant of Van Diemen’s Land, South Australia and New South Wales,
to which portions of Australia it would seem to be confined. My stay in Australia was too short to afford
me opportunities of thoroughly investigating its habits, or of gaining any precise information respecting its
nidification ; but it is natural to suppose that in these respects it as closely assimilates to its European ally
as it does in its structure and outward appearance.

The sexes present so little difference in colour, that they are only to be distinguished by dissection.

All the upper surface olive, with a broad stripe of blackish brown down the centre and two oval spots of
white, bounded above and below with black on the margin of each web of every feather; primaries and
secondaries brown; tail dark brown, margined with lighter brown and with an indication of white spots on
the extreme edge; face, throat, chest and upper part of the abdomen dark slate-grey ; lower part of the
abdomen and flanks greyish black, crossed by narrow irregular bars of white ; under tail-coverts white ;_ bill
orange-red at the base, and dark olive-green for the remainder of its length ; feet dark olive-green.

The figures are of the natural size.