COOT. 427 



but little danger of their getting adrift.* When thus 

 placed amongst the outlying reeds or rushes, growing 

 half out of the water, the nest is rather conspicuous, and 

 I have never found the eggs in any way covered ; indeed, 

 under these circumstances, there would not be sufficient 

 materials at hand to do so effectively. The bird dives 

 quietly from the nest, on the first alarm, and, like the 

 water-hen, remains submerged till all danger is passed. 

 When placed on the shore with plenty of dried litter 

 around, probably the coot may, at times, take the pre- 

 caution of covering its eggs before leaving them, but 

 my own experience on this point differs entirely from 

 that of Bishop Stanley, who describes the coot as com- 

 monly adopting this plan, whereas in no one instance 

 have I see$ it done. I have frequently found six and 

 seven eggs in one nest, which I imagine to be the 

 usual complement, but occasionally as many as ten are 

 found by the marshmen. It is probable, also, that at 

 times two birds may have laid in the same nest. 

 When, as is some times the case, not more than two 

 or three are found, but those hard sat upon, the bird 

 has most probably been robbed of her previous layings. 

 The eggs vary much in size in different nests, and the 

 smaller ones are supposed by the marshmen to belong to 

 the youngest birds; I have occasionally seen a water- 

 hen's egg amongst them laid to the coots. William 

 Hewitt, the keeper at Hoveton, many years back used 

 to search the wet bottoms of the coots' nests for me- 

 dicinal leeches, which at that time were worth one 

 shilling a-piece, but none have been found in those 

 waters for some years. As many as three and four 



* Bewick gives an instance in which a coot's nest, built on Sir 

 William Middleton's lake at Belsay, Northumberland, was loosened 

 from its moorings by the wind, and floated here and there on the 

 surface of the water. The hen bird, however, still continued to 

 sit, and hatched off her young. 

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