HERONS, RAILS, ETC. 237 



They are migratory, but both occur throughout the 

 United States except on the Pacific coast. The 

 Florida gallinule is much the more common of the 

 two. In the valley of the Delaware they are rather 

 shy, especially when nesting, but in August, like the 

 king-rails, are apt to be noisy when excited or alarmed. 

 Their utterances at this time are a good deal like the 

 imitative sounds made by the yellow-breasted chat. 

 One reason, perhaps, why these birds are not more 

 generally known is that they keep very much in the 

 background during the day, and are active in the 

 early evening. This trait led me to consider these 

 gallinules rare on the upper tide-water meadows of 

 the Delaware ; but I learned recently that in fact they 

 were not uncommon, and one of them nested every 

 year in the swamps some distance back from the 

 river valley. Dr. Warren considers the purple galli- 

 nule as extremely rare in Pennsylvania, and the latter, 

 the Florida gallinule, as uncommon. This may be 

 true of the interior of the State, but not of the Dela- 

 ware Valley and of Southern New Jersey. The 

 Florida gallinule nested on the shore of the mill- 

 pond in Bristol, Pennsylvania, in the early summer 

 of 1893, and is a familiar bird to all the gunners of 

 that neighborhood. 



The common Coot is so seldom seen, except swim- 

 ming on our ponds and inland creeks, and, of course, 

 the rivers, that to most people it is much more like a 

 duck than a rail-bird, and is known very widely as 

 the " Crow-duck," about as absurd a name as could 

 well be imagined. 



The coot is migratory in the Middle and New 



