COOT. 433 
coot will carry off a considerable amount of shot if 
planted behind the wings. 
Bishop Stanley thus alludes to the reluctance with 
which the coots quit the broads for the coast in severe 
weather :—‘On a mere, where, from constant observation, 
we knew the precise number, they would remain as long 
as a few square yards of water were unfrozen, sitting on 
the ice, or swimming with a sort of despairing rest- 
lessness round their rapidly contracting space, as if 
unwilling, while hope of thaw was left, to seek shelter 
elsewhere.” Mr. Lubbock also remarks—“when the 
water in general is frozen, they will crowd into the wake 
made by the swans, which always remains open long 
after the main pool is frozen. An opening of this kind 
is sometimes entirely filled with coots. They appear 
to dislike the migration to salt water, which is then 
their only resource, and to be willing to undergo any 
hardship rather than leave their beloved broad.” I 
have found them in severe seasons, at Surlingham, when 
only a small channel remained open in the deepest parts 
of the broad still endeavouring to conceal themselves 
amongst the reeds and rushes. Even the noise made in 
cutting through the ice in order to bring the boat nearer 
to the edge of a reed-bed has failed to disturb them, 
but the dog finding a firm footing amongst the reeds, 
has soon compelled them, one after another, to take wing, 
thus affording a succession of easy shots, and I have 
known six or seven started from an almost incredibly 
small space. Many, however, when shot in this manner 
are lost from their breaking through the ice in their 
fall and drifting under its surface; and I once proved 
to demonstration, by this kind of shooting, the tendency 
of wire cartridges to carry like a ball, as a coot that fell 
to a very long shot upon the ice broke through, and 
in the same hole I picked up the bird and the empty 
cartridge case. 
3K 
