226 
COOT. 
with its feet pattering on the water.* It is known in Pennsylvania 
by the name of the Mud-hen. 
I have never yet discovered that this species breeds with us; 
though it is highly probable that some few may occupy the marshes 
of the interior, in the vicinity of the ponds and lakes, for this pur- 
pose : those retired situations being well adapted to the hatching 
and rearing of their young. In the southern states, particularly 
South Carolina, they are well known ; but the Floridas appear to 
be their principal rendezvous for the business of incubation. “ The 
Coot,” says William Bartram, “is a native of North America, from 
Pennsylvania to Florida. They inhabit large rivers, fresh water 
inlets or bays, lagoons, &c, where they swim and feed amongst the 
reeds and grass of the shores; particularly in the river St. Juan, 
in East Florida, where they are found in immense flocks. They 
are loquacious and noisy, talking to one another night and day ; 
are constantly on the water, the broad lobated membranes on their 
toes enabling them to swim and dive like ducks.”*}- 
I observed this species to be numerous, during the winter, in 
the fresh water ponds, situated in the vicinity of the river St. Juan 
or St. John, in East Florida; but I did not not see them in the 
river. The food which they obtain in these places must be very 
abundant and nutritious, as the individuals which I shot were ex- 
cessively fat. One male specimen weighed twenty-four ounces, 
avoirdupois. They associate with the Common Gallinule; {Galli- 
nula chloropus) but there is not, perhaps, one of the latter for twen- 
ty of the former. 
The Cinereous Coot is sixteen inches in length, and twenty- 
eight in extent; bill one and a half inch long, white, the upper 
mandible slightly notched near the tip, and marked across with a 
* In Carolina they are called Flusterersy from tlie noise they make in flying along the sur- 
face of the water. A voyage to Carolina by John Lawson, p. 149. 
t Letter from Mr. Bartram to the author. 
