74 
BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA . 
No. 
Date. 
Locality. 
Food-Materials. 
1 
May 11. 1879. 
Chester county, Pa. 
Vegetable matter (green-colored). 
2 
Sept. 8. 1880. 
Near Chester city, Pa. 
Seeds. 
3 
Sept. 15, 1880. 
Near Chester city, Pa. 
Seeds and green-colored vegetable matter. 
4 
Oct. 20, 1883. 
Philadelphia, Market, Pa.. . 
Black-colored seeds. 
In addition to the examinations given in the above table, I found in 
the gizzards of five of these birds, which were killed in Florida, in 
March, 1885, numerous small yellow and brown seeds; also the stems 
and leaves of different kinds of aquatic plants. 
Subfamily FULICINjE- Coots. 
THE COOTS. 
Only one species of this subfamily is found in the United States. Coots frequent 
the same localities in which are found the rails and gallinules. They resemble in 
many ways their near relatives, the gallinules, from which, however, they can 
easily be recognized by the large semicircular lobes on front toes. Coots spend 
much of their time in the water, in which they swim and dive with ease. 
Genus FTJLJCA Linnaeus. 
Fulica americana Gmel. 
American Coot; Mud-hen; Crow Duck. 
Description (Plates.) 
Adult , in spring. —Bill short, thick and white or nearly so; frontal plate and spot 
near end of each mandible reddish-brown ; head and neck black ; edge of wing, 
tips of secondaries, and some of lower tail-coverts white; rest ot plumage dark 
grayish-lead color, lighter on belly than elsewhere; eyes reddish or brown; legs 
dark greenish-yellow ; length about 14 inches ; extent about 28. The young of this 
species are similar but everywhere much paler in color. 
Habitat. —North America, from Greenland and Alaska, southward to the West 
Indies and Central America. 
The American Coot, commonly known in eastern Pennsylvania as Mud- 
lien,* breeds in various localities throughout its extensive range. In the 
British Provinces it is said to be quite a common summer resident. Mr. 
Samuels remarks that it breeds probably in all the New England States. 
Dr. Coues has found it breeding in northern Montana and Dakota. Mr. 
H. W. Henshaw found them to be very numerous at the alkali lakes, 
southern Colorado, where, according to this eminent authority, “ they 
breed in colonies among the rushes, the nests often being but a few feet 
apart. These are very bulky structures, composed of weeds and rushes 
raised to a height of several inches from the surface of the water, so that 
the eggs are kept perfectly dry, and are moored to the stems of the sur- 
* The vernacular name of Mud-hen Is also given to the Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris crepitans— 
Gmel.) which breeds so abundantly in the extensive marshes about Atlantic City and elsewhere on the 
Atlantic coast in New Jersey and southward. 
