Pul i c a ame r i c ana 
(I) 
1890 
Mar 7-15 
Florida 
Canaverel, Banana Creek. 
The most abundant water-fowl found here. Their habits are 
very unlike those of the same bird as found in New England. They 
lie most of the time in great beds, out of gunshot of the shore, 
in the broad bays and creeks. These beds are from 100 or 200 yards 
to a mile long, and from 20 to 100 yards wide. The birds at times 
are packed as closely together as possible, each apparently touch- 
ing the next. They pres nt at a distance a curious and interest- 
ing spectacle, — a bar of dead black dotted with innunerable white 
points, these being the bills, with flashes of snowy spray leapin 
up at a hundred different places at once, the latter effect cause 
by the birds bathing or playing, lashing the water with their 
wings, or throwing it over their backs. One of these large beds 
will sometimes stay in one place for hours at a time., but as a 
rule it is drifting this way and that, as the birds seek fresh 
feeding-grounds, or move o$.t of the way of boats. When thus moving 
the Coots swim as steadily and carry their heads and necks as stif- 
fly as any of the Ducks, hence showing no trace of the usual bob- 
bing motion of the head. They feed by diving when the water is 
sufficiently deep to make this necessary, but when they can reach 
bottom without going under, precisely like the Mallard and most 
fresh water ducks, tipping up the tail and kicking up the feet, 
while their heads and the fore parts of the body are submerged. 
They ppend all their time, night and day, in the open bays and wide 
creeks, rarely or never entering narrow channels where there are 
overhanging trees or sedge , and never, as far as I observed, fre- 
quenting the small ponds and pools among the marshes. In fact, 
they are quite as much birds of open water here as are the Scaup 
Ducks. They occasionally go ashore, however, on mud-flats or sand- 
bars at a safe distance from any cover that might conceal an enemy. 
When on the land they stand very erect, and walk with a slow, wad- 
dling gait. Well out in one of the bays was a row of palmetto 
piles, the ends of which projected three or four feet above water. 
t.o n 
