328 



Adult Male (Leadenhall Market, May) . Head and neck slaty black ; back slaty black, but rather paler 

 than the head ; wings and tail coloured like the back ; but the short secondaries are tipped with white, 

 and the edge of the wing is white; underparts generally dark slaty blue-grey; under tail-coverts 

 blackish slate ; bill and frontal plate bluish white ; legs bluish grey, the bare part of the tibia orange ; 

 iris deep red. Total length about 16 inches, culmen including the frontal plate 2*05, gape l - 45, wing 

 8*2, tail 2*2, tarsus 2*25, middle toe with claw 355. 



Adult Female. Resembles the male, but is smaller, and the colours of the plumage are less pure in tint. 



Young (Ural, 1868) . Upper parts duller and paler than in the adult, the head and neck marked with small 

 white dashes ; chin nearly white ; underparts dull light slate, most of the feathers with greyish white 

 tips ; crissum and under tail-coverts black. 



Young in down. Covered with close hair-like slaty-black down tipped with white ; frontal membrane red ; 

 bill red at the base, and white towards the tip ; legs dull lead-grey ; iris brownish yellow. 



Obs. According to Mr. J. H. G-urney, jun., when the bird begins to emerge from the down into the first 

 feather-plumage, the breast, fore part of the neck, and the chin are pure white ; but I have not had an 

 opportunity of examining a specimen in this stage of plumage. 



The common Coot is very generally distributed throughout Europe, and ranges southward into 

 Central Africa, being, however, replaced in the Cape colony by Fulica cristata. In Asia it is 

 found as far east as Japan, and south to Australia. 



With us in Great Britain it is a common and resident species, being generally distributed 

 throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, though less numerous in some than in other 

 localities. In England it is to be met with in almost every county in suitable localities. 

 Mr. Stevenson writes (B. of Norf. p. 425) that, "though an abundant species in Norfolk, it 

 is not so generally distributed as Gallinula chloropus, preferring the open waters of the broads 

 and meres, extensive lakes, and large reedy ponds to the smaller coverts that content the more 

 familiar Water-Hen. Except in close vicinity to the broads themselves, it is seldom seen on 

 our rivers ; but in the neighbourhood of Surlingham and Rockland, on the Yare, its peculiar 

 cry may be heard from the deep sedgy ponds ; and in the wilder portions of the Bure and the 

 Ant, winding their sluggish course through the very heart of the ' broad ' district, this bird 

 abounds in the reedy borders, and is heard and seen at every bend of the stream. It is 

 plentiful, also, in the fen districts, both to the south and south-west of the county ; and a few 

 breed annually in more central localities, such as Scoulton Mere, the haunt of the Black-headed 

 Gulls, and on such of the meres about Wretham as afford sufficient harbour. Even Foulmere, 

 though but a short distance from a farm-house, with all the busy sounds of human habitation, 

 has attractions for this species, in a belt of rushes at one end of the water — but not so Bingmere 

 or Longmere, though situated on a still wilder portion of Wretham heath. A few, 1 believe, 

 are also to be met with in summer amongst the reeds on the salt marshes about Salthouse and 

 Cley ; but freshwater localities are almost invariably preferred in the nesting-season, when, in 

 the same neighbourhood, they regularly frequent the ponds at Hempstead, near Holt, and in 

 one part, in close vicinity to a water-mill, in spite of the constant noise of the flushes." In the 

 Humber district, according to Mr. Cordeaux, it is less numerous than it used formerly to be, and 



