American Coot. 321 



sport over its surface in company, discovering a buoyant 

 nature when not suspicious of observation. They resoi-t 

 chiefly to the margins of the open water, perhaps wishing 

 to have the friendly covert of the growing flags at hand in 

 case of need. In their migrations the mud-hens are 

 greatly harassed by the bald eagle, duck hawk, and other 

 rapacious birds; and out on the open water farther 

 from the protecting reeds they have slighter chance of 

 escaping the terrific swoop of their enemy. 



When the water recedes in ordinary manner after the 

 spring overflow so common in the swamp-lakes, the 

 coots begin to nest comparatively early, generally having 

 their nests made by the last of April, and their full com- 

 plement of eggs by the middle of May. I have frequently 

 found before the middle of May sets of eleven eggs almost 

 ready to hatch. Eeckoning eight days for incubation 

 advanced, and one day for each Qgg deposited, we have 

 nineteen days; counting backward nineteen days from 

 the middle of May, we find that the female began laying 

 in the last week of April, and nidification probably began 

 in the third week of the month. In Mr. Nelson's list of 

 birds of Cook and adjacent counties, the note concerning 

 the coot, quoted in Natural History Survey of Illinois, 

 Vol. II., page 85, says that they arrive at the end of April, 

 and remain until the end of November; but the coots 

 should make their appearance earlier in the northern 

 portion of our State, since they begin to nest in Fulton 

 County late in April in ordinary seasons. If the water 

 overflowing the river bottoms is slower in receding, the 

 coots nest toward the outer areas of the swamps, where 

 the water soonest becomes shallower and where the flags 

 first appear at the proper height, "just above knee-high," 

 as an inhabitant of the bottom regions told me should be 

 the height of the flags when the birds begin to nest. 

 When the swamp varies from two and three feet of water 

 in the open area to soft mud and dry ground at the outer 

 margin of the flags, the nests may be placed anywhere 

 within the inner two-thirds of the reedy fringing zone, 

 though they increase in number toward the deeper water. 

 I never found a nest in the open water, but I have found 

 them on the dry area, always among the flags. 

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