THE COMMON COOT. 
333 
hand : the hen tended them with the greatest care. Mr. Darragh 
(curator of the Belfast Museum), when visiting the two lakes at 
Hillsborough Park, on the 10th of June, 1845, saw at one of 
them two nests, having each five eggs, far advanced in incuba- 
tion ; at the other lake were nests also, but the eggs had been 
taken from them by the gamekeeper, under the impression that 
the coots disturb the wild ducks which are abundant there, 
and are captured in great numbers during winter for Lord 
Downshire^s table. On one of the lakes, having no trees or 
shrubs projecting over its surface, the nests were built in rushes, 
and composed of grasses and other plants. On the other, par- 
tially surrounded by woody thickets, they were placed, like the 
nests of waterhens, upon branches hanging over the lake, and 
composed of sticks, forming heaps, from twelve to eighteen 
inches high ; some of the sticks were an inch and half in thick- 
ness. They were supposed to have been constructed from the old 
nests of herons, which had been blown into the lake. In the 
county of Wexford, Mr. Poole once found three eggs worked up 
into the substance of a cooPs nest, so as to leave scarcely any 
of their upper surface visible ; and it was a matter of no little 
difiiculty to remove them without breaking; above the three, 
eight eggs were disposed in the usual manner. A waterhen, 
which made a nest on one of that gentleman’s ponds, after com- 
pleting the foundation, deposited at least one egg on it, and 
proceeded — using grass and rushes — with the elevation of the 
structure. The first egg having been thus covered up, the usual 
number was laid on the grassy lining. 
It is remarked by Mr. Selby, that the coots in the north of 
England and in Scotland regularly quit their breeding-stations 
in autumn ; and that after the month of October not an indivi- 
dual is to be seen in their summer haunts ” (vol. ii. p. 194). 
Sir Wm. Jardine observes, that in the south of Scotland a 
straggling few only remain during mild winters” (‘' Brit. Birds,’ 
vol. hi. p. 345). In Ireland, where the winters are less severe 
than in Great Britain, these birds remain constantly about their 
summer quarters unless hard frost sets in, when they are driven 
