. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. 258 ORDERS OF BIRDS—CRANES, RAILS, AND COOTS peacock blue on the back and lower breast. Even as it rises beside your railway train you can easily recognize it before it is lost to view. It still breeds on the head waters of the St. Johns, opposite Melbourne. The Coot, or Mud-Hen,' is a bird of the small creeks, and the shores of shallow lakes and ponds where cat-tails, lizard-tails, iris and. rushes grow abundantly. It is natural for any one who writes about a bird to thi
. The American natural history : a foundation of useful knowledge of the higher animals of North America . Natural history. 258 ORDERS OF BIRDS—CRANES, RAILS, AND COOTS peacock blue on the back and lower breast. Even as it rises beside your railway train you can easily recognize it before it is lost to view. It still breeds on the head waters of the St. Johns, opposite Melbourne. The Coot, or Mud-Hen,' is a bird of the small creeks, and the shores of shallow lakes and ponds where cat-tails, lizard-tails, iris and. rushes grow abundantly. It is natural for any one who writes about a bird to think of it as he saw it most impressively. My memory goes back to my first days of alligator and crocodile hunting, in the little creeks that flow from the Florida Everglades into the head and western side of Biscayne Bay. Then and there, Mud- 1Fu-li'ca americana. Average length, inches. Hens were so numerous and so tame they be- came positively monotonous. As we rowed silently along Snake Creek, or Arch Creek, the man in the bow ready for the next "big, old 'gator" found sunning himself at the edge of the saw-grass, up would go three or four slaty- blue birds of the size of bantam hens. With feeble flight, and feet pattering on the water to help along, they would fly ahead of the boat in a most offensively ostentatious manner. Of course any old alligator knows that a scared Coot usually means a boat; and since every boat is known to be loaded, the natural sequence of a frightened Coot is the bottom of' the creek. The foot of the Coot is very curiously formed. It looks as if originally it had been fully webbed, but some one in sportive mood took a pair of scissors, cut out the centre of the web, and cut deep scallops in the web along each side of each toe. The foot, therefore, is half webbed,—an excellent arrangement for running on water when the wings lend their assistance. This bird never rises on the' wing without a prelim- inary run on the water of from fi
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