138 TWENTIETH CENTUBY CLASSICS 



These birds, in their habits, are similar to the Whoop- 

 ing, but much more numerous. Their loud, modulating, 

 sonorous croak announces their presence, and is often heard 

 during the night as well as by day. 



During courtship and the early breeding season, their 

 actions and antics at times are ludicrous in the extreme, 

 bowing and leaping high in the air, hopping, skipping and 

 circling about with drooping wings anl croaking whoop, 

 an almost indescribable dance and din, in which the fe- 

 males (an exception to the rule) join, all working them- 

 selves up into a fever of excitement, only equaled by an 

 Indian war dance, and, like the same, it only stops when 

 the last one is exhausted. 



Eggs two. A set collected May 25th, 1880, near James- 

 town, Dakota, from a nest on a marsh in a tall growth of 

 rushes, a level platform about three feet in diameter, made 

 of flags, leaves and rushes, are, in dimensions: 3.68x2.25, 

 3.82x2.40 ; ground color pale olive buff, spotted and 

 splashed with sepia brown and purple shell stains, thickest 

 at larger end; in form, elliptical oval. 



XLIX. AMERICAN COOT. 

 Fulica americana ((TMEL.). 



Summer resident; not uncommon; during migration 

 abundant. Arrive the middle of March to the middle of 

 April; begin laying the last of May; a few linger late 

 into November. 



HABITAT. The whole of North America, from Green- 

 land and Alaska southward to northern South America, 

 Bermudas, West Indies (and Trinidad?). 



This species is not very common on the Atlantic coast, 



