COOT. 93 



One of the very shiest of our British birds, and thus seeming 

 to be much more rare than it really is. I have seen it at afl 

 seasons of the year, though it is, I am well aware, less tolerant 

 of cold than many other of our winter-staying birds. Its motions 

 on the bank of a stream, when suddenly disturbed, are much 

 more like those of a Water Rat than a bird. It breeds with some 

 degree of commonness in several of the Southern counties. I 

 obtained two nests from the estate in Norfolk, already mentioned 

 in these pages, at the same time with the Woodcock's eggs, and 

 was informed that it bred regularly there. I had reason also to 

 know that it bred at Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in Essex. The nest is 

 made often in an osier ground or among thick water plants, and 

 composed of different kinds of aquatic herbage. The eggs are 

 from six to nine or ten in number, and seldom quite white m hue ; 

 usually they are much more like pale or faded specimens of the 

 Land Rail's eggs, the spots being both fewer and fainter. Fig. 

 6, plate IX. 



223. MOOR HEN(Gallinula cliloropus). 



Water Hen, Gallinule, Moat Hen, Marsh Hen. Few nest- 

 hunters, however young, but know the nest and eggs of this very 

 common bird. I have in many cases seen it almost^domesticated, 

 and constantly taking its food among domestic fowls, and some- 

 times even almost from the hands of human creatures. Its nest 

 is made in somewhat various places. I have seen it amid the 

 sedges growing in the water near the edge of a marsh-ditch or 

 the like, on dry tussocky tumps near a sheet of water, among 

 the herbage and willow stubs not far from the same Mere, built 

 upon masses of fallen but not decayed bulrushes and flags, at 

 the edge of a pond, on a bough projecting several feet horizon- 

 tally from the bank over and resting upon (or partly in) the 

 water of a running stream, nay, even in a branch or top of a 

 thick tree, or among the ivy which mantled its trunk and 

 wreathed its branches. In it are laid six, seven, or eight eggs, 

 of a reddish-white colour, sparingly speckled and spotted with 

 reddish-brown. The egg;s have been known to be removed by 

 the parent birds under circumstances of peril awaiting them 

 from a flood for instance and hatched in some new locality. 

 Instances also have been recorded in which a supplementary nest 

 has been constructed by the female parent to receive a part of 

 her brood, when they were too numerous and had grown too 

 large to be accommodated by their original nest-home at night. 

 Fig. 7, plate IX. 



VI. LOBIPEDIDvE. 

 224. COOT (Fulica atra). 



Bald Coot. A common bird enough in many parts of the king- 



