The Purple Gallinule not unfrequently alights on ships at sea. While at the Island of Galveston, on the 26th of April, I was offered several live individuals by the officers of the Boston frigate, which they had caught on board. My friend JOHN BACHMAN once received three specimens that had been caught three hundred miles from land, one of them having come through the cabin window. He also obtained from the Hon. Mr POINSET a fine specimen caught on board, on the Santee River, in South Carolina, in May. It is easily kept alive if fed with bread soaked in milk; and on this food I have known several that remained in good health for years. In Louisiana, where it is called _Rale Bleu_, its flesh is not held in much estimation, but is used by the negroes for making gombo. My friend BACHMAN considers this species as rather scarce in South Carolina and Georgia, but states that it breeds there, as he has occasionally observed pairs on the head waters or preserves of rice plantations during summer, but never met with any in winter. The extreme limit of its range eastward is the neighbourhood of Boston, where a few individuals have been procured. I think I may safely tell you that the figure of the Purple Gallinule exhibited in the plate, is the first ever published from a drawing taken from Nature! FULICA MARTINICA, _Linn._ Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 259. GALLINULA MARTINICA, _Lath._ Ind Ornith. p. 769.—_Ch. Bonaparte_, Synops. p. 336. GALLINULA PORPHYRIO, _Wils._ Amer. Ornith. vol. ix. p. 67. pl. 73. fig. 2. PURPLE GALLINULE, _Nuttall_, Manual, vol. ii. p. 221. Adult Male in Spring. Plate CCCV. Bill as long as the head, nearly straight, stout, deep, compressed, tapering. Upper mandible with a soft ovate plate at the base extending over a great part of the head, the dorsal line beyond this plate straightish and slightly declinate as far as the middle, then arcuato-declinate, the ridge gradually narrowed until over the nostrils, afterwards considerably widened, the sides nearly erect, the edges sharp, the notch obsolete. Nasal groove extending nearly to the middle of the bill, broad; nostrils sub-medial, lateral, oblong, direct, pervious. Lower mandible with the angle rather long and narrow, the sides nearly erect and slightly concave, the dorsal line beyond the angle ascending, straight, the edges sharp and direct, the tip narrowed, rather sharp.