Purple Gallinule in Maryland
1939; Oxford University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4078812
ISSN1938-4254
Autores Tópico(s)Garlic and Onion Studies
Resumoeneral Nos 475 widely, boisterously resenting my approach to its food.Even though the gull was still rather warm indicating recent death I hesitate to conclude that it had been actually killed by the Peregrine, for I have never seen any species of hawk even threaten an adult gull.The same afternoon while returning past this spot I was astonished to see an American Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus sancti-johannis) standing on the dead gull tearing off scraps of meat.I sat in my car for fully ten minutes watching this operation and then proceeded home.But the climax was not reached until the following day when I found a Marsh Hawk (Circus hudsonius) gleaning what it could from the nearly devoured carcass.Here were three species of hawks eating from the same piece of carrion.Anyone capable of analyzing the stomach contents of these birds assuredly would hesitate to say that the two latter species, if not the Peregrine, had destroyed this powerful gull.But then, the piece of carrion could just as well have been a dead pheasant or a dead chicken and the three hawks subsequently win the damnation of any sportsman witnessing the feast or reading of an authentic stomach-contents analysis by some scientist.--ALL.•ND. CRV•CKS'•.•NK,National Association of Audubon Societies, New York City.Purple Gallinule in Maryland.--OnOctober 12, 1938, R. B. Smithers shot a gallinule on the Patuxent Marsh in lower Anne Arundel County, Maryland.The bird was sent in the flesh to the Natural History Society of Maryland.The specimen proved to be an immature female, and although we were not very familiar with gaIlinules in this plumage, characters of tarsi and nostrils indicated that it was a Purple Gallinule (Ionornis martinica).In January 1939, we were able to have this identification verified by Dr. Herbert Friedmann of the United States National Museum.The coloration tallies very closely with the description given for the juvenal plumage by Bent (Bull.U.S. Nat.Mus., no.135, p. 342).There is no indication of the dark purplish feathers which appear on the under parts in the postjuvenal molt.Thus, according to Bent's statements, the bird was probably less than two months old.Although there are numerous records of the casual occurrence of this species north of the breeding range, it appears that no specimen has ever before been taken in Maryland.
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