COOT. 
229 
In Lewis and Clark’s History of their expedition, mention is 
made of a bird which is common on the Columbia ; is said to be 
very noisy, to have a sharp, shrill whistle, and to associate in large 
flocks; it is called the Black DiickJ*^ This is doubtless a species 
of Coot, but whether or not difierent from ours cannot be ascer- 
tained. How much is it to be regretted, that in an expedition of 
discovery, planned and fitted out by an enlightened government, 
furnished with every means for safety, subsistence and research, 
not one naturalist, not one draftsman, should have been sent, to 
observe and perpetuate the infinite variety of natural productions, 
many of which are entirely unknown to the community of sci- 
ence, which that extensive tour must have revealed ! 
The Coot leaves us in November, for the southward. 
The foregoing was prepared for the press, when the author, 
in one of his shooting excursions on the Delaware, had the good 
fortune to kill a full plumaged female Coot. This was on the 
twentieth of April. It was swimming at the edge of a cripple or 
thicket of alder bushes, busily engaged in picking something from 
the surface of the water, and while thus employed it turned fre- 
quently. The membrane on its forehead was very small, and 
edged on the fore part with gamboge. Its eggs were of the size 
of partridge shot. And on the thirteenth of May another fine fe- 
male specimen was presented to him which agreed with the above, 
with the exception of the membrane on the forehead being nearly 
as large and prominent as that of the male. From the circum- 
stance of the eggs of all these birds being very small, it is probable 
that the Coots do not breed until July. 
* History of the Expedition, vol. ii, p. 194. Under date of November 30th, 1805, they 
say: “ The hunters brought in a few black ducks of a species common in the United States, 
living in large flocks, and feeding on grass : they are distinguished by a sharf} white beak^ toes 
separated^ and by having no craw^ 
3 M 
VOL. IX. 
