146 



CRANES, RAILS, AND COOTS 



Even as it rises beside your railway train you can easily 

 recognize it before it is lost to view. It still breeds on the 

 headwaters of the St. Johns, opposite Melbourne. 



The Coot, or Mud-Hen,^ is a bird of the small creeks, 

 and the shores of shallow lakes and ponds where cat-tails. 



THE COOT. 



lizard-tails, iris and rushes grow abundantly. It is natural 

 for any one who writes about a bird to think of it as he saw 

 it most impressively. My memory goes back to my first 

 days of alligator and crocodile hunting, in the httle creeks 

 that flow from the Florida Everglades into the head and 

 western side of Biscayne Bay. Then and there Mud-Hens 

 were so numerous and so tame they became positively monot- 

 onous. As we rowed silently along Snake Creek, or Arch 



' Fu-li'ca americana. Average length, 14.50 inches. 



