OBSERVATIONS ON SOME HABITS OF THE COOT 61 



As to the materials, so far as could be seen from the bank, 

 twigs were used in all cases, once green stems covered with 

 leaves torn from the overhanging ivy at the end of the pond. 

 The female, when sitting, did not leave the nest when anyone 

 appeared on the bank of the pond, but in one instance the 

 sitting bird was seen to rise from the nest and chase the 

 other to it, which might indicate that both birds incubate, 

 though there is no doubt that the female sits most of 

 the time. As the nests were quite inaccessible, the period 

 of incubation could not be determined with any degree 

 of accuracy. 



When the young are hatched, they may not take to the 

 water at all freely during the first week or two. In the case 

 of two of the six broods watched, the chicks remained on the 

 island covered by the female (at least, when anyone was at 

 the pond), and the male brought them food. In other cases 

 the young were swimming about freely the first time they 

 were seen, though it was certain they could only have been 

 hatched a day or two. The young birds were fed frequently, 

 apparently with insects at first, these being picked from the 

 weeds which the parent birds procure by diving, and later, 

 with the weed itself, the young picking at the bunch held at 

 the surface by the adult. A male was watched bringing 

 supplies to the chicks as often as four times a minute. 

 The young ran to meet him at the water's edge, and having 

 been fed one by one, returned to the shelter of the nest 

 where the female was brooding over them. The young 

 have been seen when a little older, but when still retaining 

 all the characteristics of the downy chick, feeding inde- 

 pendently on the insect life clinging to the willow stems 

 and brick banks of the pond. When anxious for food, the 

 downy young approached its parent with head depressed 

 and bill uptilted, exactly in the manner of the adult courting, 

 and touched the old bird's beak in order to attract attention. 

 During the feeding, which is interrupted every few minutes 

 for a rest, the young keep up a continual calling. 



As may happen in the case of most animals, one or two 

 of the chicks may increase in size more rapidly than the 

 others. In a brood of four hatched in the first days of 



