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.