NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 105 



to ten or even fourteen in number, pale, dull buff, or stone-color, spot- 

 ted with rust-colored, brownish-black and purplish-gray. The average 

 size of a large series is 2.I5X 1.50. 



221. Fulica americana GMEL. [580.] 



American Coot. 



Hab. Whole of North America; south to Mexico, Central and South America and West Indies; north 

 to Alaska, occasionally to Greenland. 



Well known as the Mud Hen, and in some sections the Crow Duck. 

 This is the water fowl that the young sportsman persists in shooting as 

 a game bird, but at a riper age he does not " hanker " after its flesh. 

 It is easily known by its slate colored plumage, white or flesh-colored 

 bill, marked with reddish-black near the end and at the base of frontal 

 plate, greenish legs and carmine iris. The Coot is a good swim- 

 mer and diver, having lobate feet like the phalaropes and grebes. It 

 can also move swiftly through tangled grass and aquatic plants. On 

 almost any large or small body of water sufficiently secluded and whose 

 margins are overgrown with reeds and rushes, or on sluggish streams, 

 swamps, pools or reedy sloughs, there you will find the Coot during the 

 breeding season. The nest is made of dead reeds and grasses, placed 

 on the ground, just out of the water or on floating vegetation ; the flags 

 on which it rests being broken down, rises and falls with the water. 

 Sometimes immense numbers of these birds breed together. Mr. 

 Shields records taking five hundred Coot eggs, together with large 

 numbers of those of ducks and grebes in Southern California.* The 

 eggs are clay or creamy-white, uniformly and finely dotted all over with 

 specks of dark brown and blackish ; six to twelve and fifteen eggs are 

 often found in a single nest; in shape and general style of color and 

 markings resemble those of the Florida Gallinule ; sizes range from 

 1.77 to 2.00 long by 1.40 to 1.45 broad. 



222. Crymophilus fulicarius (LINN.) [563.] 



Red Phalarope. 



Hab. Northern portion of Northern Hemisphere, breeding in Arctic regions, migrating south in win- 

 ter; in North America south to Middle United States, Ohio Valley and Lower California. 



The Coot-footed Tringa, Red or Gray Phalarope, as it is differently 

 called, is distributed in summer throughout the Arctic regions, wander- 

 ing far south in winter. Breeds in various portions of Norway, Sweden, 

 Finland and up into Lapland ; in Siberia, Spitzbergen, Iceland, Green- 

 land and the Arctic coast of North America. The Phalaropes are curious 

 birds, partaking of the nature of a wader and a swimmer. The three 

 species of this family resemble Sandpipers, but are at once distinguished 



*Egging in a California Swamp. Young Oologist, Vol. I., p. 90. 



