PLATE II 

 THE COOT. Fulica atra 



May 5//r, 1895.- -The nest depicted here is a very fair type of the floating 

 Coot's nest, which is generally a heap of reeds or grass built on some mass of 

 water-plants, or simply anchored among the growing reeds. This nest was 

 entirely composed of floating reeds, anchored to the few straggling ones growing 

 up from the bottom in some five feet of water, on the outskirts of a thick reed- 

 bed at the mouth of a burn running into the Lake of Monteith ; on the top 

 of the floating pile a few smaller pieces of reed formed a sort of cup, which 

 was lined with dry sedges and dead reed leaves. 



The old bird left the nest when I was some fifty or sixty yards away, and 

 disappeared into the thick masses of reeds, where I could hear her moving 

 restlessly about and calling every now and then. The nest was a very large 

 structure, and must have covered a good deal more than a square yard of 

 surface. It was very conspicuous when the bird was sitting on it, as it was 

 quite out in the open, at the end of a sort of point in the bed of reeds. It 

 contained nine perfectly fresh eggs. 



I had some difficulty in obtaining a photograph of it, as the water was 

 too deep to set up the legs on the bottom ; but I managed it by driving an 

 oar into the mud at the bottom and tying the legs round it, so that the camera 

 was on the top. I could then incline the oar till the nest was in the centre of 

 the plate; being alone, however, the boat would always bump against the oar 

 just as I had it all ready to take off the cap. While changing my plates at 

 some little distance, I had leisure to watch the return of the old bird ; she- 

 seemed to have great difficulty in getting on to the nest, as the floating reeds all 

 round would hardly carry her weight, and seriously interfered with swimming. 



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