430 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
not so vague a mode of calculation as at first appears, 
for coots swim evenly at regular distances from each 
other without huddling together into dense masses like 
wild fowl.” The same author speaks of the moor- 
buzzard or marsh-harrier being in former days useful 
to the fowler, “in driving the coots together so as 
to afford a better shot.” He has known thirty-one 
killed at one discharge, when thus driven in by a 
pair of harriers. This habit of flocking together when 
attacked by the larger raptores is likewise referred to by 
Sir Thomas Browne, who, speaking of the great flocks 
of coots that in his time collected on the “ Broad 
waters,” remarks, “upon the appearance of a kite or 
buzzard, I have seen them unite from all parts of the 
shore, in strange numbers, when, if the kite stoops 
near them, they will fling up and spread such a flash of 
water with their wings, that they will endanger the 
kite, and so keep him off again and again in open 
opposition; and a handsome provision they make about 
their nest against the same bird of prey, by bending 
and twisting the rushes and reeds so about them, that 
they cannot stoop at the young ones or the dam while 
she sitteth.” With regard to this latter statement, 
however, if such a device was ever practised by the 
coots in former days, for the protection of themselves 
and young, unquestionably their descendants, no longer 
in terror of moor-buzzards or kites, adopt no such 
precautions. According to Messrs. Sheppard and 
Whitear, also, the same tactics are displayed by the 
coots when attacked by the larger gulls, as they state 
that on one occasion they observed the former “on 
the approach of their enemy, rush together from all 
quarters, and form a close, round, compact body, 
appearing like bees in the act of swarming. © The 
gull kept hovering over their heads, and frequently 
dashed within a yard or two of them. Whenever he 
