BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
75 
rounding reeds.” During the winter months coots may be seen in large 
flocks along the St. John’s river, Florida; at “Mud Lake,” about ten 
miles north of Sanford, I have seen over a thousand in one flock. 
The coot is found throughout Pennsylvania as a common spring and 
fall migrant—April, September and October—frequenting usually 
sloughs, pools and sluggish streams. They generally are much more 
numerous in autumn than in spring; and at Erie bay these birds are 
frequently seen, especially in the fall, in flocks, swimming among the 
reeds and rank grasses near the shore. I have never observed the coot 
in Pennsylvania in the breeding season, and am quite certain it seldom 
breeds here. Lists of birds received by me from naturalists and collec¬ 
tors, residing in all but five or six counties of the commonwealth, with 
two exceptions, show that the coot has been noted only as a spring and 
fall visitor. That it has been found breeding in at least two localities, 
there appears to be no doubt, as both Mr. S. S. Overmoyer, of Mercer 
county, and Dr. John W. Detwiller, of Northampton county, mention it 
as a native. “Eggs, about a dozen, 1.75 to 2.00 long by 1.20 to 1.35 broad, 
shaped like an average hen’s egg, clear clay-color, uniformly and min¬ 
utely dotted with dark brown, the spots usually mere pin-heads, some¬ 
times large blotches. The nest is sometimes on dry ground a little way 
from water. The young hatch covered with black down, fantastically 
striped with bright orange-red, with vermillion bill tipped with black.”— 
Coues. 
Audubon states that its food consists of seeds, grasses, small fishes, 
worms, snails and insects, along with which it introduces into its stom¬ 
ach a-good quantity of rather coarse sand. Nuttall observes that they 
feed principally on aquatic vegetable substances, as seeds, leaves, etc. 
In March, 1885, I obtained seventeen coots at Little Lake George, 
Florida, and found in the stomachs of all only small seeds, blades of 
grass, with, in most every instance, a small quantity of sand or gravel. 
Six of these birds, which I have obtained in Chester county, Pa., had 
only vegetable materials, small black and yellow seeds, also sand in 
their muscular gizzards. 
Order LIMICOLJE. Shore Birds. 
Family PHALAROPODIDjE. Phalakopes. 
THE PHALAROPES. 
Three species of this family are found in the United States, and two, at least, occur 
more or less regularly in Pennsylvania. Although these birds resemble, in many 
respects, the sandpipers, they can readily be distinguished from the latter by the 
curious lobate feet, like those of the grebes and coot, previously described. Phala- 
ropes, the smallest of our swimming birds, spend much of their time in the water, 
on which they swim in an easy and graceful manner. The under plumage is com- 
