cooT. 431 
flew to a distance the coots dispersed, and again at his 
return flocked together.” Mr. Rising, of Horsey, has 
a young glaucous gull in his collection, which was killed 
in November, 1847, in the act of pouncing upon a dead 
coot. The coot was shot as it rose from a reed-bush, 
and the gull, which, with several more was flying over 
at the time, instantly pounced upon the coot, and was 
shot whilst standing on its intended prey. 
The custom of attacking the coots with boats and 
guns, when collected in large bodies either in spring 
or autumn, is referred to by Messrs. Sheppard and 
Whitear,* in 1825, and is still adopted on some of 
our larger broads. At Hickling, where these birds 
collect together in immense numbers, a coot shooting 
party is an annual institution. A day being fixed for 
the sport, boats, filled with gunners, assemble from the 
neighbouring villages to join the proprietor and his 
friends in a general fusillade, and outsiders, posted in 
every available spot upon the banks and marshes, are 
prepared to wait for a chance shot. The coots are then 
driven out of the reed-beds and bushes on to the open 
water, and the boats, advancing in line, work them 
gradually up towards one end of the broad. When 
thus closely pressed, they rise en masse, and sweeping 
back over the heads of the gunners, the battue opens 
on all sides, a dropping fire being kept up from the 
marshes as the birds scatter in their flight. The same 
method of collecting and driving is repeated, as soon 
as the coots have settled on the further extremity of 
the water, and this several times in succession, until 
the survivors are fairly driven from the broad, and 
* The same authors also state that the fowlers on the Stour, 
were accustomed to approach the coots upon the ooze, “by con- - 
cealing themselves behind a screen made of bushes, placed upon 
a sledge and driven before them.” 
