WATER-BIRD WAIFS 



habits of meadow mice than birds, as they run through 

 the grass, and it is next to impossible to make them fly. 

 Sometimes they are caught alive by the hunting dogs. 

 Then there is the large species called King Rail, found 

 in Middle and Southern States, seldom plentifully, 

 and the Clapper Rail, or Marsh Hen, of the salt marshes 

 along the coast from Connecticut southward. The 

 Florida Gallinule is much like a large rail, and is found 

 sparingly in fresh-water bogs, being common only in 

 the South, where I have found their nests, similar to 

 the rails', among the rushes in bogs. The American 

 Coot, sometimes called "Blue Peter," or Mud Hen, is 

 rather common, in the same sort of haunts, in migra- 

 tion. Having lobed feet and compact plumage, it 

 swims, as does the webless gallinule, and is often mis- 

 taken for a duck. It is a gray bird about the size of a 

 pullet, with bill like the latter and a patch of white 

 above its base. They bob their heads back and forth 

 as they swim. Out in the Northwest I have found 

 hundreds of their nests in the great sloughs in the 

 reeds, basket-like affairs of reed stems, with from six 

 to a dozen finely speckled eggs. 



Next we have the heron tribe, and interesting birds 

 they are. The Great Blue Heron is the biggest of 

 them, so tall that it gets the popular name of Blue 

 Crane, which is inaccurate, for it is no crane at all. 

 They are not plenty, and nest now mostly in the North, 

 but also in wild Southern swamps, in both of which 

 regions I have found their nests, generally in colonies, ' 

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