THE AMERICAN COOT. 



457 



safe distance. Today, however, under the lash of incessant alarms they took 

 to wing readily and proved themselves graceful fliers — a little slow and very 

 steady, but really fair game so far as that is concerned. In flight, they carry 

 their legs stretched at full length behind them, and seem to use them quite 

 cleverly as a rudder, to supply the deficiencies of the abbreviated tail. 



Every gun in the swamp was pounding at them, but they had no thought 

 of leaving the locality by daylight! A sad feature of the chase was the number 

 of birds that fell into the reeds and were either lost, if dead, or else left wound- 

 ed. So fierce 

 was the per- 

 s ec u t i on, 

 that by noon 

 there were 

 only eighty 

 that mus- 

 tered in the 

 open water 

 while the 

 sportsmen 

 lunched; al- 

 tho I pre- 

 sume there 

 were as 

 many more 

 lurking i n 

 the reeds. 

 Those which 

 were spared 

 the first day 

 were too 

 tired to 



move south on the following night, and a remnant of a hundred and fifty birds 

 were found on the same spot early the next morning, when the process of half- 

 killing was substantially repeated. 



Query: If it takes Coots ten nights, with daily rests (?) between, 

 to pass from their northern breeding grounds to their winter quarters, and 

 a flock, faring as this one did, averages to lose half its number each day^ of 

 512 birds that leave Canada, how many will reach Florida? 



Query number two : Does it pay ? Well, here is something to guage by : 

 I would have given ten dollars for a photograph of the flock as I saw it first, 

 but I would not give half that sum for all their carcasses piled .in a heap. What 

 sort of folly is this thing we call sport? 



Taken in Lorain County. 



Photo by the Author. 



COOT AT BAY. 



THIS BIRD WAS FOUND SPENDING THE DAY ON A TINY STREAM FOUR MII,ES 

 FROM LAKE ERIE. 



