434 BIRDS OF NORFOLK.- 



When compelled, however, from the necessities of 

 hunger to quit the fresh waters for a time, the coots 

 on any one broad migrate in a body, by night,* to 

 the saltmarshes and flat oozy shores by the sea, and 

 this so simultaneously that not a bird remains behind. 

 There fresh persecution awaits them from the punt 

 guns on Breydon and other parts of the coast; and 

 in severe seasons their numbers are greatly thinned, 

 some times twenty or more being killed at one shot. 

 The " cripples," as Mr. Frere tells me, that have 

 escaped the gunners at the time are sure to be 

 found secreted amongst the loose stones of the wall, 

 which forms the boundary of those tidal waters, and a 

 good retriever will thus pick up several in a morning, 

 besides other fowl. He has also seen a coot, though 

 quite dead, still clinging by its feet to the weeds under 

 water, to which it had attached itself for the purpose 

 of submersion and concealment. Many couples may be 

 seen at such times for sale in our markets with other 

 fowl, being offered at sixpence a piece, and when pro- 

 perly cleansed from the thick black down under the 

 feathers, are said to be very fair eating,f but except 

 amongst the marshmen and labouring population of our 

 Broad district, they seem but little appreciated. Most 

 of the fenmen, according to Mr. Lubbock, prefer them 

 to a wild fowl. The pace at which a winged coot will 

 run, when once landed on the ooze, is almost incredible, 



* Captain Blakiston in a paper " on the Birds of the Interior 

 of British North America" ("Ibis," 1863, p. 135), states that the 

 American coot (Fulica americana) " has a habit of making a sharp 

 rattling noise at night ; and, moreover, is said to migrate during 

 darkness only." 



f Colonel Hawker, in his instructions for preparing coots for 

 table, remarks particularly " that a coot shot in the morning, just 

 after roosting, is worth three killed in the day when full of grass, 

 because it will then be whiter and milder in flavour." 



