176 THE WATERHENS. 



but its dumpy figure and very short tail serve to distin- 

 guish it even before one gets near enough to make 

 out its uniform black colour and conspicuous white 

 bill. The presence of Coots on any water is said to 

 encourage and attract Ducks, and the two are often 

 found in company ; but when a gunner gets among 

 them the Ducks are soon gone, while the Coots 

 remain. When they do take wing they rise with 

 difficulty, beating the water with their wings and 

 feet. Then they fly slowly round and soon settle 

 again. For this reason they are very satisfactory 

 game to a " sportsman " who finds that he has no 

 luck with Ducks. I have not seen a Coot in Bombay, 

 except in the guise of a present of game, but it is very 

 common everywhere in the neighbourhood. 



Near to the Waterhens Jerdon.puts the Jacanas. 

 Blanford relegates them to a different Order, and he may 

 be right ; but we are not concerned with their " true 

 inwardness" here. Outwardly they are Waterhens 

 which neither haunt the borderland of rushes, like the 

 Rail, nor swim out into the deep, like the Coot, but 

 walk upon the water. Their toes are so long that, 

 wherever the weeds and water-lilies are at all thick, 

 they can travel with as much ease as a Laplander on 

 his snow shoes. The paradise of the Jacana is one of 

 those ancient tanks, choked with crimson and white- 

 flowered lotus, which are at once the wealth and the 

 glory of an Indian village ; where the women fill their 

 waterpots and wash their clothes, and the men bathe 

 and the buffaloes wallow and everybody is happy ; 

 where no thought of microbe and bacillus blows 

 across the placid calm of life, and the Pasteur-Mallie 

 filter is unknown. We are rapidly infecting the 



