RAILS, COOTS, ETC.: AMERICAN COOT 
243 
them “in wet fields where marsh grass, rushes, and cat-tails grew in 
abundance” (MS), and near Mesilla Park he has heard their calls from a 
larger tule-filled sink. At State College, strangely enough, he once 
picked up a young one that had killed itself by flying against a telephone 
wire (MS). 
In walking through the smartweed patches bordering the tules of 
Lake Burford we frequently flushed the quaint Soras, when they slanted 
up with droll heavy-bodied, short-winged flight to speedily drop down, 
losing themselves among the myriad stems of their safe cover. When 
a gun was shot off near the tules where one was hidden, a shrill scream 
would announce its presence, and during the mornings the strident 
laugh was often heard mingled with the talk of coots and the quacking 
of ducks (1910c, p. 424). 
Like the Virginia Rails, during the breeding season the Soras are so 
full of talk and song that they may easily keep track of each other in 
their labyrinthine marshes. Their commonest calls are a bright ani¬ 
mated kee, or ker-wee , while the full song which Mr. Brewster attributes 
to the female and describes as “the silvery whinnying notes,” suggests 
an ecstatic descending chromatic scale. Sometimes broken near the 
end, after a moment's pause the last notes are repeated, slowing up at 
the close. 
Additional Literature.—Bent, A. C., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 135, 303-316, 
1926.— Forbush, E. H., Educational Leaflet 75, Nat. Assoc. Audubon Soc.— Ray, 
M. S., Condor, XV, 112, 1913 (nest). 
COOTS: Subfamily Fulicinae 
AMERICAN COOT: Fulica americana Gmelin 
Fig. 41. Foot of 
Coot 
Description. — Length: 13-16 inches, wing 7.2-7.6, bill (to front of shield) 1.2—1.6, 
tarsus 2-2.2, middle toe 2.4-2.6. Toes with scalloped lobes for swimming, and under 
plumage dense. Adults in summer: Plumage slaty , darkening to black on head and 
neck; wings and under tail coverts marked with w’hite, and 
feathers of belly more or less tipped with white; iris red, bill 
mainly white, frontal shield on forehead chocolate brown; legs 
and feet yellowish green, lobes gray. Young in juvenal plum¬ 
age: Similar to adult but upperparts brown, underparts mottled, 
frontal shield rudimentary, iris brown. 
Range. —North and Middle America. Breeds from British 
Columbia, Mackenzie, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and 
Quebec south to Guatemala, Mexico, and southern Lower California (rare or acci¬ 
dental as a breeder in eastern United States); winters from British Columbia (prob¬ 
ably Idaho and Nevada), Utah, Colorado, Texas, eastward to Maryland and south 
to Panama, Columbia, and Peru; casual in Labrador, Greenland, Alaska, etc. 
State Records. —The American Coot has a widely extended breeding range 
from central Canada to Yucatan and Guatemala. Its summer home in New Mexico 
is found both in the lowest altitudes as at Carlsbad, 3,000 feet (Bailey), and up to 
8,000 feet at Halls Peak (Barber). It breeds near Santa Rosa (Bailey), Clark Lake 
near Carlsbad, Lakewood (Ligon), Mesilla (Merrill), Las Palomas (Goldman), and 
