'American velvet scoter. 215 



eggs. This species, like the old-squaw and other 

 coots, spends much of its time, late in the spring, in pre- 

 paring for the long flight that it must make to its sum- 

 mer home. The hours from three o'clock in the after- 

 noon until dark are spent chiefly on the wing, and 

 often it is not much before the first of June when the 

 last of the coots leave the New England shore. 



On the Pacific coast this species is found in winter as 

 far south as Southern California and in summer to 

 the Bering Sea. In the month of July I have seen them 

 on the Gulf of Georgia in vast numbers, the birds being, 

 no doubt, chiefly males, the females nesting somewhere 

 in the vicinity. 



The coots are regarded as exceedingly tough and 

 hard to kill, and the gunners along the New England 

 coast who shoot them commonly use very large shot, 

 often 3's, and sometimes 2's. Birds that are only 

 wounded, dive and skulk with great skill, and if there 

 is any sea on the water, are likely to escape notice and 

 not to be recovered. Often they dive, and apparently 

 never come to the surface again, and it is believed that 

 they cling to weeds at the bottom and remain there until 

 dead. 



Some of the names given for this species by Mr. 

 Trumbull are May white-wing or great May white- 

 wing, pied-winged coot, bell-tongue coot, Uncle Sam 

 coot, bull coot, brant coot, sea brant, assemblyman, 

 channel duck. 



