258 



ORDERS OF BIRDS— CRANES, RAILS, AND COOTS 



peacock blue on the back and lower breast. 

 Even as it rises beside your railway train you 

 can easily recognize it before it is lost to view. 

 It still breeds on the head waters 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, 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 little creeks that flow from the 

 Florida Everglades into the head and western 

 side of Biscayne Bay. Then and there, Mud- 

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



Hens were so numerous and so tame they be- 

 came positively monotonous. As we rowed 

 silently along Snake Creek, or Arch Creek, the 

 man in the bow ready for the next "big, old 

 'gator" found sunning himself at the edge of 

 the saw-grass, up would go three or four slaty- 

 blue birds of the size of bantam hens. With 

 feeble flight, and feet pattering on the water to 

 help along, they would fly ahead of the boat 

 in a most offensively ostentatious manner. 

 Of course any old alligator knows that a scared 

 Coot usually means a boat; and since every 

 boat is known to be loaded, the natural sequence 

 of a frightened Coot is the bottom of' the creek. 



The foot of the Coot is very curiously formed. 

 It looks as if originally it had been fully webbed, 

 but some one in sportive mood took a pair of 

 scissors, cut out the centre of the web, and cut 

 deep scallops in the web along each side of each 

 toe. The foot, therefore, is half webbed, — an 

 excellent arrangement for running on water 

 when the wings lend their assistance. This 

 bird never rises on the' wing without a prelim- 

 inary run on the water of from fifty to one 

 hundred and fifty feet. It swims and dives 

 quite well, but as a rule it prefers to live as do 

 the rails and gallinulcs, in the edges of heavy 

 marsh vegetation, where it can pick up its living 

 of buds, blossoms, seeds, aquatic insects and 

 snails, and also hide from its enemies. 



As yet the Coot is not considered a "game- 

 bird," and is not slaughtered for food ; but, once 

 let the evil eye of the Epicure fall with favor 

 upon this bird — or any other — and its doom will 

 be sealed. 



The distribution of this species is given as 

 "from Greenland and Alaska southward to the 

 West Indies." 



