96 Baby Birds at Home 



The nest is made amongst osiers, rushes, 

 reeds, and other aquatic herbage found grow- 

 ing round large bodies of water. It is formed 

 at its base of all kinds of decaying water- 

 plants, for which the bird may sometimes be 

 seen industriously diving, and in its upper 

 parts of dry sedges, flags, reeds, and rushes. 

 The structure is generally built up from the 

 bottom of a shallow part of some lake or 

 mere, but is occasionally only moored to sur- 

 rounding reeds, from which it is liable to 

 become detached during floods or strong 

 winds and float away. The Coot does not 

 appear to mind this, however, for the writer 

 has seen one calmly sitting on her eggs 

 whilst the nest was drifting hither and 

 thither on a large reservoir. 



The eggs number from seven to ten, of a 

 dingy stone colour, spotted all over with 

 brown. They are easily distinguished from 

 those of the moorhen, because of their larger 

 size and the fact that the markings on them 

 are smaller. 



The chicks are clothed in black down, 

 some of the tips of which are hairlike and 

 white. They leave the nest directly they 

 are hatched. 



