232 LOBE-FOOTED BIRDS. 



second hatch, of about 8 eggs, more securely concealed 

 among the flags on the margins of pools, that ever survive 

 to renew the species. The nest, secreted in this manner 

 among the rank herbage, is placed on the surface of the 

 water, but raised above it by piling together a quantity of 

 coarse materials, in order to keep the eggs dry. In this 

 buoyant state, a sudden gale of wind has been known to 

 draw them from their slender moorings, and nests have 

 thus been seen floating on the water, with the birds still sitting 

 upon them, as in the act of navigating over the pool on 

 which they had resided. The female is said to sit 22 or 23 

 days ; the young, now covered with a black down, quit 

 the nest as soon as they are hatched, and are then cherished 

 under the wings of the mother, and sleep around her be- 

 neath the reeds ; she also leads them to the water, in which 

 they swim and dive from the moment of their liberation 

 from the shell. 



When closely pursued in the water, the Coot sometimes 

 makes for the shore, and from the compressed form of its 

 body, though so awkward in its gait, can make considerable 

 progress through the grass and reeds. When driven to take 

 wing on the water, it rises low and with reluctance, flutter- 

 ing along the surface with both the wings and feet pattering 

 over it, for which reason, according to Lawson, in his His- 

 tory of Carolina, they had in that country received the name 

 of Flusterers. 



The food of the American Coot, like that of the other 

 species, is chiefly vegetable ; they live also upon small fluvia- 

 tile shells and aquatic insects, to all which they add gravel 

 and sand, in the manner of common fowls. A specimen 

 which I examined on the 19th of September, had the stom-. 

 ach, very capacious and muscular, filled with tops of the 

 Water Milfoil ( Myriophyllum verticillatum,) and a few 

 seeds or nuts of a small species of Bur-Reed (Sj^argani- 



