* 
652 AVES—CRESTED GREBE 
of the head, which in the water-hen 1s red, in the coot is white. The upper 
parts of its plumage are black, the breast and belly white. As the cootisa 
larger bird than the water-hen, which it much resembles, it is always seen 
in larger streams, and more remote from mankind, It there makes a nest 
of such weeas as the stream supplies, and lays them among the: reeds, float- 
ing on the surface, and rising and falling with the water. The reeds among 
which it is ouilt keep it fast, so that it is seldom washed into the middle of 
the stream. But if this happens, which is sometimes the case, the bird sits 
in her nest, like a mariner in his boat, and steers, with her legs, her cargo 
into the nearest harbor; there, having attained her port, she continues to 
sit in great tranquillity, regardless of the impetuosity of the current; and, 
though the water penetrates her nest, she hatches her eggs im that wet 
condition. The coot is by no means a rare bird in Britain, where it resides 
permanently, though with the seasons it changes its residence. It is rather 
a timid bird, very inert, and feeds in the evening, upon fishes, insects, seeds, 
and herbage. In Madagascar there is a coot with a red comb like a cock. 
¢ 
THE CRESTED GREBE.! 
Tuts bird is about the size of a duck. Its bill, that part especially 
towards the head, is of a reddish color, and is somewhat more than two 
inches in length. On the top of the head and neck is a beautiful crest 
of feathers, those on the neck appearing likea collar or ruff, and seeming a 
good deal bigger than they really are; those on the top of the head are black, 
those on the sides of the neck are of a reddish or cinereous color; the back 
1 Podi-eps cristatus, LatH. The genus Podiceps has the bill middle size, straight, 
hard, compressed, in the form of an elongated and pointed cone ; tip of the upper mandi- 
ble slightly inclined; nostrils lateral, concave, oblong, closed behind by a aletnBraite, open 
in front and pervious; legs long, placed far backwards; tarsi much compressed ; fore 
toes much depressed, connected at their hase, and furnished with a simple lobe; hind toe 
compressed and scalloped; claws broad, much depressed ; no tail; wings short. 
