CHAPTER XII 

 WADING BIRDS 



It is a pity that most birds of this class are not amenable 

 to artificial aids to increase their numbers, particularly the 

 Limicolae or shore-birds. These birds are largely insectiv- 

 orous, and all are migratory. The only feasible way to 

 increase them is to secure their adequate protection. In 

 another publication I have noted my experience with a 

 captive woodcock. It weighed six ounces, and ate each day 

 from eight to twelve ounces of earthworms, which was up 

 to twice its own weight of food a day. Being unable to 

 spend so much time digging worms, I hired boys, who became 

 known as my ''worm brigade." After a month I was glad 

 to liberate the bird. Imagine raising woodcocks Hke phea- 

 sants ! 



Coot or Mud-hen. One species of wader, however, I 

 found very adaptable, the American coot or mud-hen. This 

 bird, of the rail tribe, found in numbers in our marshes, and 

 breeding abundantly in the sloughs of the West, is the size 

 of a small duck, and can be handled much in the same way. 

 It is prolific, laying from eight to sixteen smallish eggs, 

 dotted with small black specks, in a floating nest of rush 

 stems, built among the reeds or other water-plants. In the 

 summer of 1913, in northern Manitoba, as an experiment I 

 hatched some of their eggs in an incubator and raised a 

 number of young to maturity in brooders. They are most 

 peculiar-looking creatures, having black down, with red 



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