256 ORALLY. 



of the wing, and a small white spot under the eye, which are 

 the only decided and conspicuous markings in the whole 

 plumage. The legs are greenish, darker in the toes and 

 lower part of the tarsus, and often yellowish in the garter or 

 naked portion of the tibia. The tarsi are of moderate length, 

 but the toes are very long, with sharp hooked claws, and 

 bordered on each side by lobed membranes of considerable 

 breadth. 



The coot retains so much of the characters of the gallinule, 

 that the two genera may be considered as conterminous, for 

 the pratincole, though we have given a slight notice of it as 

 an interesting stranger that has been seen, and that may be 

 seen again, has no appropriate habitat in this country, and 

 therefore cannot enter into any arrangement by which it 

 is attempted to place British birds in the order of their 

 degrees of natural affinity. 



In some particulars there is a resemblance between the 

 coot and the fowl (Gallus) ; like the latter, it gathers its 

 brood under its wings, puts on gayer colours in some of the 

 featherless parts of the head, and feeds partly on the seeds 

 of aquatic plants, and the hybernaculating and farinaceous 

 or albuminous roots, when the latter are left exposed by 

 the decay of the annual stems in the autumn. There is 

 also a trace of resemblance to the fowl in the point and gape 

 of the bill, and also in the outline of the under part back- 

 wards ; but the general contour is more that of a duck. 



The legs are placed farther backwards than in any of the 

 birds that live chiefly on land, but they appear to be farther 

 back than they are in reality, from the degree to which the 

 tarsal joint is extended when the bird walks. 



It has been said (and the saying has no doubt been founded 

 on that very bending of the tarsal joint, and the tendency 

 that the toes have to collapse the instant that the foot is off 

 the ground) that the coot walks with great labour and dim*- 



