Black-backed Swamphen
Porphyrio indicus Horsfield, 1821
Photo © By JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13790398
STATUS
Australasia. Polytypic.
OVERVIEW
Species not admitted nationally (BOU 1971).
NOT PROVEN
0). 1864 Hampshire Redbridge, shot, February.
(H. Reeks, Zoologist 1866: 229; J. E. Harting, Zoologist 1877: 295; J. H. Gurney, jun., Zoologist 1894: 427).
History Henry Reeks of Thrugton (1866) in The Zoologist, 2nd series, Vol. I. p. 229, dated 16th April, 1866, says: 'I had the extreme pleasure, on Thursday last, of inspecting a magnificent specimen of that lovely bird, the Purple Waterhen or Violet Gallinule (Porphyrio hyacinthinus), which had been shot during the month of February, 1864, in the parish of Redbridge, near Southampton.The bird is still in the hands of its captor, James Ridges, of Redbridge, who will be delighted to show it to any of your readers. It has been set up in a very life-like manner by that excellent taxidermist, Mr. C. Hendy, of Southampton, than whom no man is more competent. The characteristic tameness of the Purple Waterhen was well exemplified in this specimen: it was feeding in a bed of cabbage near the Southampton Water, and the gun with which Ridges killed it missed fire several times before it discharged, and yet the bird took little notice of it, although not more than fifteen paces distant. I believe the above will be interesting, as the first recorded instance of the capture of this handsome bird in Great Britain.'
J. E. Harting, Editor (1877) in The Zoologist, 3rd series, Vol. I. p. 295, says: 'When enumerating the recorded instances of the capture of some species of Porphyrio in this country (p. 227), we accidentally omitted to note the capture of one at Redbridge, near Southampton, in February, 1864, as reported by Mr. Henry Reeks in the Zoologist for 1866, p. 229.'
J. H. Gurney, jun., of Norwich (1894) in The Zoologist, 3rd series, Vol. XVIII. p. 427, says: 'In the Zoologist for 1866 (p. 229), the late Mr. H. Reeks, of Thruxton, recorded the capture of a Purple Gallinule at Redbridge, near Southampton. Happening to be in the neighbourhood, I thought it worth while to search this Porphyrio out, which, with Mr. Edward Hart's help, I did, and found it in the cottage of the man who shot it thirty years ago; but instead of it being Porphyrio caeruleus, as we expected, it turned out to be a specimen of the Australian Black-backed P. melanotus. The plumage showed no signs of confinement, but the bird was probably an escaped one nevertheless.'
Comment A Porphyrio had already been killed in Hampshire a year earlier and reported in The Zoologist, but it cannot be the same bird as different people were involved.
