24 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA No. 9 



rather easily. Late one summer a mud-hen was found in a peach orchard two 

 or three miles from any water and as it seemed unable to take wing from a 

 ground start it was easily captured. When thrown into the air its flight was 

 rapid and strong but hardly graceful. 



This species must begin nesting rather early in favorable seasons as young 

 birds have been seen as early as the first week in April. 



May 30, 191 2, a Coot was seen occupying a floating nest on a comparatively 

 open sheet of water near Firebaugh. No doubt there were many others nesting 

 in the cat-tails nearby, but this bird was living in a houseboat that was visible 

 from any direction. Had this ark been untenanted it might have passed for 

 one of the many bits of floating drift and dry tules, but with a large bluish bird, 

 with a distinctly white bill, perched upon it there was no mistaking it even at 

 a distance. 



In spite of their clumsy ugliness mudhens are interesting creatures, especially 

 when they assemble to feed, like chickens, upon the grass, sometimes at some 

 distance from their favorite pond. It is their voracious appetites that have led 

 to their downfall, however ; for the hunters claim that the grain placed about 

 ponds to entice ducks and geese is devoured by the hungry coots, and for that 

 reason a reduction in the numbers of the mudhen host often seems desirable from 

 the sportsman's point of view. 



Northern Phalarope. Lobipes lobatus (Linnaeus). 



While there seems little reason to doubt the more or less frequent oc- 

 currence of phalaropes in favorable places in the valley during migrations, yet the 

 writer has observed but a single bird and that one was noticed so late as May 

 20, 1912. On that date I was looking through a colony of nesting stilts in a salt- 

 grass pasture near a pond six miles southwest of Fresno. A phalarope was 

 swimming about most unconcernedly in a neck of the pond. Naturally I watched 

 him with much interest and finally walked up to within less than thirty feet of 

 him when he flew a short distance and again settled on the water not far away. 

 Later in the day I happened to be passing the same place but the bird was not to 

 be seen. No doubt this was just a hungry migrant that had stopped over for 

 a few hours to feed in so attractive a pond. 



It may seem like a dangerous proceeding for one confessedly unfamiliar 

 with this class of birds to name the species from merely seeing a single individ- 

 ual ; but in this case the bird was clearly seen and carefully compared with the 

 book descriptions. 



An'ocet. Recurvirostra americana Gmelin. 



Shallow, muddy, alkaline ponds surrounded by rolling, salt-grass prairie, 

 seem to exactly suit the requirements of this wader, and these conditions are met 

 with at many points along the western part of the county from Wheatville to 

 Mendota. Mr. J. H. Pierson of this city observed a number of avocets near the 

 latter place on May 27, 191 1, sitting on their eggs. They were nesting on little 

 islands that stood a few inches above the water. At other places they nest on 

 the bare ground among the patches of salt grass. 



April 6, 1906, seven pairs of "yellow snipes," as the ranchers often call them, 

 were observed in the shallow water at the Artesian Lake. Their subdued cry, not 



