white gallinule

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

n.


one of the birds of thefamily called Rails. The White Gallinule wasrecorded from New South Wales in 1890, and also from Lord HoweIsland, off the coast, and from Norfolk Island. The modernopinion is that it never existed save in these two islands, andthat it is now extinct. It was a bird of limited powers offlight, akin to the New Zealand bird, Notornis mantilliwhich is also approaching extinction. Only two skins of theWhite Gallinule are known to be in existence.

1789. Governor Phillip,' Voyage to Botany Bay,' p. 273 andfig.:

«White Gallinule. This beautiful bird greatly resembles thepurple Gallinule in shape and make, but is much superior insize, being as large as a dunghill fowl. . . . This speciesis pretty common on Lord Howe's Island, Norfolk Island, andother places, and is a very tame species.»

1882. E. P. Ramsay, `Proceedings of the Linnaean Society ofNew South Wales,' p. 86:

«The attention of some of our early Naturalists was drawnto this Island by finding there, the now extinct `WhiteGallinule,' then called ( Fulica alba), but whichproves to be a species of Notornis

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