30 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Fulica americana. American Coot. — Having learned 

 that an army of ' Mud-hens ' were making the larger res- 

 ervoir back of Pacific Grove their winter quaiters, I 

 visited this little sheet of water on the day before Christ- 

 mas, finding several hundred swimming upon the surface. 

 Although they were pursued in three boats and thirty of 

 them shot, they made no attempt to escape beyond flying 

 from one side of the reservoir to the other. Because 

 they stirred up the mud of the bottom, they had been 

 relentlessly persecuted by the men employed by the water 

 company. Some time before, their ranks had been thinned 

 in a sino-le afternoon to the number of three hundred, 

 and afterwards, I was told, they were exterminated. At 

 the mouth of the Carmel River a few were seen on the 

 sand-bars, Jan. 9th. 



