346 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



travelling about six yards before a little head bobbed up, looked 

 round, and, concluding itself safe, was followed by the small 

 round ball of down to which it belonged. But the old Coots 

 care for their young even when the latter are well grown. On 

 July 11th, 1890, I visited Thrustonfield Lough with Mr. J. N. 

 Robinson; we were especially pleased to see two well-grown 

 birds in close attendance on their parents, sometimes swimming 

 in their wake and receiving dainty morsels from their bills, at 

 other times waiting upon them in easy leisure, while the old 

 Coots worked for the youngsters. After an interval they 

 returned to the nest and took up their position on the summit 

 of the pile of closely-matted water-plants, standing high and 

 dry, the better to perform their toilet. The juveniles looked 

 rather handsome in their piebald dress, their white necks 

 gleaming in the sunshine and forming a pleasant set-off to the 

 more sombre feathering of the old Bald Coots. 



As illustrating the remarkable tenacity with which this 

 species clings to favourite breeding-grounds, I may cite a passage 

 in Lord William Howard's Accounts for 1621, which refers to a 

 still existing colony of these birds : ' Feb. 2, For bringing xxij 

 lake hens from Corkeby, vi d .' 



Many of the Coots that breed in Lakeland perform a partial 

 migration in winter. Stragglers occasionally appear on our 

 estuaries, but the larger proportion congregate on the larger 

 lakes. The Rev. H. D. Rawnsley counted 382 Coots on Der- 

 wentwater in March 1888, and Mr. Durnford estimated that in 

 the severe frost of January 1879 all the other wild-fowl were 

 far outnumbered by the Coots on Windermere. 



Order ALECTORIDES. Fam. GRUIDJE. 



CRANE. 



Grus communis, Bechst. 



Although the swamps and dismal morasses which formerly 

 existed in our midst may well have tempted the Crane to 

 summer with us in a remote past, there is no modern evidence 

 to show that this Crane ever visits Lakeland, unless a straggler 



