AMERICAN COOT. 



199 



unknown. Timorous and defenceless, they seek out the re- 

 motest solitudes to breed, where, amidst impassable bogs and 

 pools, the few individuals which dwell in the same vicinity are 

 readily overlooked and with difficulty discovered, from the 

 pertinacity of the older birds in hiding themselves wholly by 

 day. It is therefore only when the affections and necessities 

 of the species increase that they are urged to make more visi- 

 ble exertions, and throw aside, for a time, the characteristic 

 indolence of their furtive nature. We now see them abroad, 

 accompanied by their more active and incautious offspring, 

 night and morning, without exhibiting much timidity, the young 

 sporting and feeding with careless confidence in their fickle 

 element. They are at this time easily approached and shot, 

 as they do not appear to dive with the same promptness as the 

 European species. 



The old birds, ever watchful and solicitous for their brood, 

 with which they still appear to associate, when alarmed utter 

 at times a sort of hoarse ^kruk, which serves as a signal either 

 to dive or swim away. At this season of the year Mr. N. 

 Wyeth informs me that he has heard the Coot repeatedly 

 utter a whizzing sound, which he can only compare to the 

 plunge of large shot when fired into water. It might possibly 

 be the small and bouncing leaps with which the associated 

 young of the common species amuse themselves at almost all 

 hours of the day. In East Florida, where they appear, ac- 

 cording to Bartram, to assemble and breed in great numbers, 

 they are very chattering and noisy, and may be heard calling 

 on each other almost night and day. With us they are, how- 

 ever, very taciturn, though tame, and with many other birds 

 appear to have no voice but for the exciting period of the 

 nuptial season. 



The Coots of Europe have many enemies in the predacious 

 birds which surround them, particularly the Moor Buzzard^ 

 which not only destroys the young, but sucks the eggs to such 

 an extent that notwithstanding their great prolificacy, they lay- 

 ing from twelve to eighteen eggs, the numbers are so thinned 

 by depredation that not above one tenth escape the talons of 



