SIX months' bird collecting in EGYPT. 95 



Coot within twenty-five feet, though there is no cord 

 attached to the net. As soon as he has disappeared in the 

 darkness we He down again and wait tlie result ; nor have 

 we long to wait. On a sudden the rush of many wings is 

 heard. The affrighted Coots are up. He has made his 

 cast : there is no longer any need for silence. His comrades 

 in the boat make up the fire, and after throwing out a 

 bundle of blazing reeds to show they have moved, pull 

 rapidly towards the place the sound came from. We strain 

 our eyes in peering through the darkness until in a few 

 minutes we perceive him returning dripping wet, with the 

 Coots alive in the net, having been absent little more than 

 a quarter of an hour, — long enough all the same to freeze 

 him to the very bones. They wrap the poor wretch in a 

 "burnous," and then he stands over the fire and hterally 

 steams. 



All night these sturdy fellows follow the working of the 

 Coots with dogged perseverance if they go on feeding, but 

 if the night is calm. Coots do not feed after twelve. On a 

 still night they sleep best, and then as many as 150 are 

 sometimes caught. They have an ingenious mode of 

 securing them by tying the tips of the wings together under 

 the body in front of the legs. A fat Coot sells for a shilling, 

 a thin one for a franc. I saw basketfuls on sale in 

 Damietta, but I imagine a good many are consumed on 

 board the boats, for near Geut-El-Nosara* quantities of 

 wings were to be seen floating on the water, which had once 

 appertained to Coots. I searched for the Crested Coot, but 

 could not learn that such a bird was known. 



Before leaving the lake, we anchored against a small 

 island which had been once a Roman station, for there were 

 any amount of urns of all shapes and sizes, (but none of 

 them perfect,) and bricks in squares, and hundreds of little 



* i.e. the Christians' country, — the port at the west end of the lake. 



