nesting operations before the middle of April, and full clutches of its eggs 

 can hardly be found before the beginning of May. The nest is a large 

 untidy structure, loosely built a big heap of dead reeds, water-plants, and 

 leaves, whatever comes handy and is most often placed in shallow water 

 among tall reeds or rushes, the foundation being made on the bottom. It 

 is usually tied to the surrounding reeds, and is much more carefully built 

 inside, being lined with the dead leaves of reeds. The nest is sometimes 

 built among the large weeds on the banks of the lake, or on the half-submerged 

 branches of some tree which has fallen into the water among reeds or rushes. 

 Often it is built on a mass of floating reeds caught among some patch of 

 water-plants. 



The Coot sits very closely, and slips quietly away into the water on the 

 approach of danger, skulking among the reeds and rushes not far from its 

 nest. I remember being intensely amused at an old Coot who tried to conceal 

 herself after the manner of that wise bird the Ostrich. I observed her 

 sitting on her nest, and as she appeared to be unusually tame, I cautiously 

 approached in my boat to try and get a photograph of her. Just as I was 

 getting within range she stood up in the nest, and, after looking at me for 

 a few seconds with her head on one side, she turned her back on me and 

 quietly hid her head among the reeds and leaves over the far side of the 

 nest. She stood there for some time a great, conspicuous object showing 

 black against the light colour of the dead reeds around. I was so overcome 

 that I made some slight noise putting up my camera, and she slowly 

 disappeared over the side of the nest before I could secure a portrait of her. 



I have on two occasions observed the Coot remove its eggs from the 

 nest. The first occasion was on the advent of a high flood. While fishing 

 one day in a pretty heavy and rising stream on the Forth, I saw a Coot 

 swimming to the shore from a small island of reeds carrying something in its 

 bill and pressed against its breast. On going closer I found it was an egg. 

 I saw her carry four eggs to a rough nest on the bank before the nest in 

 the patch of reeds was submerged. I have reason to believe that the young 

 birds were safely hatched out from the new nest. On the other occasion the 

 rats had carried off several of the eggs from a Coot's nest on the banks of 

 a small pond at home, and I saw the old Coot carrying an egg, held in her 

 bill and supported on her breast, to an overhanging rhododendron on a small 

 island near. On investigation I found three Coot's eggs in an old Waterhen's 

 nest; the bird, however, did not succeed in hatching them out. 



From seven to twelve eggs are usually laid by the Coot, sometimes as 



42 



