the surface of this great body of standing water is clear and 

 open. In other places, it is covered by floating islands, 

 almost firm enough to bear a man's weight, of tall reeds and 

 wide-spreading aquatic plants; while in those parts of the 

 reservoir which used to be densely wooded swamp lands, 

 the tall tree-trunks spring straight upward from the water — 

 the cypresses still alive and flourishing, but the pines dead 

 and rapidly decaying. The fresh, wine-colored water breeds 

 myriads of insects and is alive with fish and frogs, and 

 consequently many aquatic and swamp-living birds have 

 found in this huge resevoir an ideal home. Through the 

 kindness of a member of the Goose Creek Club who has 

 accompanied me on my trips, I have been able recently to 

 spend three days (April 4th, 13th, and 20th) in this most 

 interesting locality and to investigate, as well as I could in 

 so short a time, its wonderfully varied feathered population. 

 The most conspicuous if not the most abundant of the 

 reservoir's avian inhabitants are the Coots and Florida Gal- 

 linules. The flooded lands are alive with these birds, swim- 

 ming about among the floating islands of vegetation, spat- 

 tering noisily over the water, or now and then making short 

 flights from place to place — and, all the while, uttering an 

 endless variety of outlandish noises sounding sometimes like 

 loud scornful laughter, at other times resembling the groan- 

 ing or whimpering of a child in pain. Whether both Coots 

 and Gallinules are responsible for these sounds we could not 

 determine, though I think one species is as noisy as the 

 other. Both are rather wild, keeping usually well out 

 of gunshot, and yet not so wild as to render observation at 

 all diflficult. The glistening white bill of the Coot and the 

 bright red bill and frontal shield of the Gallinule are ex- 

 cellent field marks, so that, in spite of the striking similarity 

 of the two species in form and habits, we had no difficulty 

 in distinguishing between them. We seldom saw either 

 Coots or Gallinules in the stretches of open water or in the 



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