THE COOT 601 



food consists of various aquatic weeds, which it finds on or below the 

 surface of the water. In the latter case the birds either dive, or, if 

 the weed is near enough to the surface, content themselves with 

 turning end up after the manner of ducks, in which position they 

 maintain themselves by one or two backward kicks of the feet. They 

 remain submerged or semi-submerged only for a few seconds, for no 

 longer than is necessary to bring some of the weed to the surface, 

 where they peck and pull it into eatable morsels. They also dive for 

 fresh-water molluscs, and have been seen to land them and extract 

 the contents, leaving the shells lying. 1 Their method of diving is to 

 turn over with a jump, and go under vertically or almost so. Under 

 water they progress by simultaneous strokes of the feet, the wings 

 being kept close to the body. 2 



A method of feeding, which has not yet so far received much 

 attention, is recorded by Dr. F. Helm. The bird stands on a mass of 

 drift weed (zusammengeschwemmtem Genisf) and strikes it repeatedly 

 with one foot, apparently to uncover or disturb aquatic organisms 

 of some kind, which it then picks up with the beak. 3 



Though the coot is highly gregarious outside the breeding season, 

 in it each pair confines itself to a given nesting area of reeds and 

 water which is jealously guarded. As each pair has a definite idea 

 as to the position of its boundaries, and as the ideas on this subject 

 of adjacent pairs do not necessarily coincide, it is not surprising that 

 disputes are frequent and sometimes violent, especially up to the 

 period of incubation and hatching, when family duties leave the 

 disputants less time to spare for watching their neighbours. But the 

 spirit of hostility manifests itself even up to the end of the breeding 

 season. As late as July 22, when the young were fully fledged, I have 

 seen the rival parents approach each other in the familiar posture of 

 menace head and neck stretched straight along the surface of the 

 water, and wings raised over the back, held much as a swan holds its 



1 Journal fur Ornithologie, 1864, p. 394. : T. A. Coward, Fauna of Cheshire, i. 373. 



3 Naumann, Vogel Mitteleuropas, vii. 132. 



