THE WATER HEN AND THE COOT. 355 



These birds have too near an affinity not to be ranked in the 

 same description. They are shaped entirely alike, their legs are 

 long, and their thighs partly bare ; their necks are proportion- 

 able, their wings short, their bills short and weak, their colour 

 black, their foreheads bald and without feathers, and their habits 

 entirely the same. These, however, naturalists have thought 

 proper to range in different classes, from very slight distinctions 

 in their figure. The water-hen weighs but fifteen ounces, the 

 coot twenty -four. The bald part of the forehead in the coot is 

 white; in the water-hen it is of a beautiful pjnk colour. The 

 toes of the water-hen are edged with a straight membrane, those 

 of the coot have it scolloped and broader. 



The differences in the figure are but slight ; and those in their 

 manner of living still less. The history of the one will serve for 

 both. As birds of the crane kind are furnished with long wings, 

 and easily change place, the water hen, whose wings are short, 

 is obliged to reside entirely near those places where her food lies : 

 she cannot take those long journies that most of the crane kind 

 are seen to perform ; compelled by her natural imperfections, 

 as well perhaps as by inclination, she never leaves the side of the 

 pond or the river in which she seeks for provision. Where the 

 stream is selvaged with sedges, or the pond edged with shrubby 

 trees, the water-hen is generally a resident there : she seeks her 

 food along the grassy banks, and often along the surface of the 

 water. With Shakespeare's Edgar, she drinks the green mantle 

 of tke standing pool ; or, at least, seems to prefer those places 

 where it is seen. Whether she makes pond-weed her food, or 

 hunts among it for water-insects, which are found there in great 

 abundance is not certain. I have seen them when pond-weed 

 was taken out of their stomach. She builds her nest upon low 

 trees and shrubs, of sticks and fibres, by the water-side. Her 

 eggs are sharp at one end, white, with a tincture of green, spot- 

 ted with red. She lays twice or thrice in a summer ; her young 



