GALLINULINiE. FULICA. 
11 & 
mandibles, their base being pale red ; feet bluish-grey, with 
an olivaceous-orange ring on the tibia. Young with the 
upper parts dark greyish-green, the lower dull brownish-grey. 
Grey or brownish individuals are sometimes met with. 
Male, 16, 22, 8f, 2±, 2^, *. 
The Coot is generally distributed in Britain, but in winter 
retires to the southern parts. Its favourite places of resort 
are large pools, lakes, or rivers, overgrown or margined with 
reeds, flags, sedges, water-lilies, and other aquatic plants, 
among which it is seen swimming in search of its food, which 
consists of seeds, fresh blades of grass, mollusca, and worms. 
Sometimes it makes excursions into the neighbouring fields, 
when it runs and walks precisely in the manner of the water- 
hen. It floats lightly on the water, swims sedately, jerking 
its tail ; dives with ease, and eludes pursuit by retreating be- 
neath the surface of the water, to emerge in a concealed part. 
In summer it emits a very loud, abrupt cry, resembling the 
note of a trumpet. The nest is extremely large ; the eggs, 
from six to ten, elongated oval, light yelloAvish-grey, dotted 
with brownish-black, two inches and a twelfth long, an inch 
and five-twelfths in breadth. The young are covered with 
black down tipped with white, the hind part of the head yel- 
low, the frontal membrane blood-red. 
Bald Cook Bald Duck. 
Fulica atra, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. 25?. — Fulica atra, Lath. 
Ind. Ornith. ii. 777- — Fulica atra, Temm. Man. d’Ornith. 
ii. 706.— -Fulica atra, Bald Coot, MacGillivray, Brit. Birds, 
iv. 
We now come to the last order of the Grallatorial series, 
composed of slender, long-legged, generally conic-billed birds, 
addicted to wading, and, without exception, essentially 
aquatic or littoral. Although several of them greatly re- 
semble some of the Cursitrices in form, they are unable to 
run with the same ease, their feet being differently formed, 
but advance with a slow and sedate motion, whence the 
name of Stalkers, not inaptly applied to them by Mr Blythe. 
They are more truly piscivorous than the birds of the other 
groups, and their stomach accordingly differs in being thin 
or membraneous, while their gullet is wide, and their intes- 
tine elongated and very narrow. 
