PORPHYRIO STANLEYI.
(The White Porphyrio.)
Wing 8 inches 7 lines ; tarsus 3 inches 4 lines ; naked part of tibia 1 inch 3 lines ; middle toe, without the claw, 3 inches, outer toe 2 inches 4½ lines, inner toe 2 inches 2 lines, hind toe 1 inch ; bill from gape 1 inch 2½ lines, under mandible 1 inch 4 lines ; upper mandible, from point to end of plate 2 inches 4¼ lines, to the beginning of the plate 1 inch 6 lines. No total length can be given ; the tail is in bad condition, and the skin so old and thin that it will not bear much handling.
This unique, perhaps extinct, and most interesting bird is now in the Liverpool Museum; and I have to express my obligations to Mr. T.J. Moore and the Committee for permission to draw it for this work. I have also to thank Mr. Keulemans for the trouble he had in going to Liverpool expressly for that purpose and for taking the measurements. To Professor Newton's kindness I owe the use of his Catalogue of William Bullock's sale. The specimen now has this label on it : — "White Gallinule, Lath. Syn. (2 edit, pp. 428-40); Gallinula alba, Ind. Orn. 2.768. Bullock's Museum, 1645. 27 May, 1819." Another small label, tied round the leg, has "D" and the reverse "3213." The "D," of course, means Derby, and the figures on the reverse the number of the specimen in the Derby Museum, as the "1645" was its designation in the Bullock one. In Bullock's priced sale- catalogue, on the seventeenth day, p. 103, Thursday, May 27, 1819, I
observe :— " Lot 60. White Gallinule (F. alba). New Zealand, rare; brought
g 2
