THE COOT. 



161 



The Coots are all birds of moderate size, some attaining the dimensions of a small Goose, but the 

 English species does not exceed those of a good-sized fowl. The plumage is extremely close, compact, 

 and impervious to wet, and the body appears rather clumsy to the observer, but in the water the bird's 

 movements are by no means ungraceful, as it swims with the same ducking motion as the Moor- 

 hen already described. The nest is built of dead rushes, often ornamented with the stalks and 



flowers of the marsh-marigold intertwined with the reeds. It is rather a large structure, and somewhat 

 flat, but, though floating on the water, it is always perfectly dry inside. It is built in rather more 

 exposed situations than the Moor-hen's among the branches of a dead bough jutting out of the water, or 

 even among the reeds on the shallow side of a lake. The eggs are about eight in number, as a rule, 

 and are of a light brown colour or yellowish-grey, covered with small dots of brownish-black. The 

 young, when first they emerge from the egg, are prettier than at any other time of their life, being 

 covered with black fluffy down, but having the head red, with a shade of bluish-purple. 



