THE BIRD BOOK 
219. Florida Gallinule. Gallinula galeata. 
Range — Temperate North America, from New 
England, Manitoba and California, southward. 
A grayish colored bird of similar size to the 
last (13 inches long), with flanks streaked with 
white, and with the bill and crown plate reddish. 
They nest in 
colonies in 
marshes and 
swamps, build- 
ing their nests 
like those of 
the Purple 
Gallinule. The 
eggs, too, are 
similar, but 
larger and 
slightly duller. 
Size 1.75 x1.20. 
Data. — Monte- 
zuma marshes, Florida, June 6, 1894. Eleven 
eggs. Nest of dead flaggs, floating in two feet of 
water. Collector, Robert Warwick. 
Pale buff. 
[220.] European Coot. Fulica atra. 
A European species very similar to the next, 
and only casually found in Greenland. Nesting 
the same as our species. 
221. Coot. Fulica americana. 
Flo 
rida Gallinule. 
Coot. 
a grayish 
1.80 x 1.30 
Range. — Whole of temperate North America, 
from the southern parts of the British Provinces, 
southward; very common in suitable localities 
throughout its range. 
The Coot bears some resemblance to the 
Florida Gallinule, but is somewhat larger, 
its bill is white with a blackish band about 
the middle, and each toe has a scalloped 
web. They inhabit the same marshes and 
sloughs that are used by the Rails and Gal- 
linules as nesting places, and they have the 
same retiring habits, skulking through the 
grass to avoid observation, rather than fly- 
ing. Their nests are either floating piles 
of decayed vegetation, or are built of dead 
rushes in clumps of rushes on the banks. 
They generally build in large colonies. The 
Grayish. eggs number from six to sixteen and have 
ground color, finely specked all over the surface with blackish. Size 
136 
