BIRDS OF KANSAS. 145 



vicinity; it is a circular structure, and, in some cases, quite deep 

 and bulky. Eggs usually eight to ten, 1.73x1.24; buff white, 

 thinly spotted and splashed with varying shades of reddish 

 brown; in form, oval. One set of thirteen, collected May 25th, 

 1878, on a bog in Pewaukee Lake, Wisconsin, measure as fol- 

 lows: 1.63xl.l8,'1.84xl.27, 1.67x1.18, 1.60x1.16, 1.67x1.18, 

 1.78x1.30, 1.81x1.29, 1.79x1.29, 1.88x1.27, 1.70x1.16, 1.80 

 xl.30, 1.75x1.18, 1.80x1.28. 



Subfamily FULICIN^. Coots. 



"A frontal process, as iu GallinuUncB; toes with a lateral lobed margiu; size 

 large." 



Genus FULICA Linx.eus. 



"Very similar to Gallinula, but the toes margined by a broad, deeply-scal- 

 loped, lateral membrane. Bill shorter than the head, straight, strong, compressed, 

 and advancing into the feathers of the forehead, where it frequently forms a 

 wide and somewhat projecting frontal plate; nostrils in a groove, with a large 

 membrane near the middle of the bill. Wings rather short, second and third 

 quills usually longest; tail very short; tarsus robust, shorter than the middle toe, 

 with very distinct transverse scales; toes long, each having semicircular lobes, 

 larger on the inner side; hind toe rather long, lobed." 



Fulica americana Gmel. 



AMERICAN COOT. 

 PLATE X. 



Summer resident; not uncommon; during migration, abund- 

 ant. Arrive the middle of March to the middle of April; 

 begin laying the last of May; a few linger late into November. 



B. 559. R. 580. C. 6S6. G. 271, 68. U. 221. 



Habitat. The whole of North America, from Greenland and 



Alaska southward to northern South America, Bermudas, West 



Indies (and Trinidad?). 



Sp. Char. '■'■Adult: General color uniform slate color or slaty plumbeous, 

 the head and necli and anterior central portion of the crissum black; lateral and 

 posterior portions of the crissum, edge of wing and tips, of secondaries white. 

 (In winter, the belly suffused with whitish.) Bill milk white, more bluish 

 terminally, each mandible with a spot of dark brown near the end, bordered an- 

 teriorly with a more or less distinct bar of I'eddish chestnut; frontal shield 

 dark chestnut or liver brown, the cidmen just in front of this tinged with green- 

 ish yellow; iris bright crimson; legs bright yellowish green. The tibiae tinged 

 behind and above with orange red; toes light bluish gray, tinged with yellowish 

 green on scutellse of basal phalanges. Young: Similar, but lower parts more 

 gray, and much suffused with whitish, especially on the throat and belly; bill 

 -10 



