Coot

“ Phalaropus Fulicarius. (Coot-like Phalarope—Gould.)
114. I think the epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what a coot is like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as a variety, both of them being distinguished from the coot, not only by color, but by their smaller size;— (they eight inches long, it sixteen) —and by the slender beaks, the coot having a thick one, half-way to a puffin's. ”

“ I have seen a female Coot and her brood, when disturbed by a party of sportsmen, paddle for a small patch of rushes, and defy a long-continued and minute search conducted by keepers and clever water-dogs. ”

“ The flesh of the coot is very variously regarded as food. To prepare the bird for the table, the feathers should be stripped, and the down, which is very close, thick and hard to pluck, be rubbed with powdered resin; the body is then to be dipped in boiling water, which dissolving the resin causes it to mix with the down, and then both can be removed together with tolerable ease. ”

“ If, on the other hand, they are not justified, why do not the orthodox biologists arise and refute my statements and arguments? It is my belief that the black livery of the coot is not only not the product of natural selection, but is positively harmful to its possessor; that the coot would be an even more successful species than it now is, if, while retaining all its habits and other characteristics, it had a coat of less conspicuous hue. I maintain that many organisms possess characters which are positively injurious to them, and yet manage to survive. ”

“ It dives with ease, and when wounded is said frequently to clutch the weeds at the bottom with a grasp so firm as not even to be loosened by death. It does not often come on dry land, but when there, marches leisurely and not without a certain degree of grace. The feet of the coot are very remarkable, the toes being fringed by a lobed membrane, which must be of considerable assistance in swimming as well as in walking over the ooze—acting as they do like mud-boards. ”

“ Creatures which can live on a mixed diet usually do well in the struggle for existence. Then, the coot is a prolific bird. It brings up several broods in the year, and its clutch of eggs is a large one. The nest is usually well concealed among reeds and floats on the surface of the water, so is difficult of access to both birds and beasts of prey. Moreover, the mother coot carefully covers up the eggs when she leaves the nest. Another useful characteristic of the coot is its wariness. Many water-fowl go to sleep in the daytime, but the coot appears to be always watchful. ”

“ During the efforts preliminary to flight the bird presents a very easy mark; hence its popularity among inexperienced sportsmen. Now, since the coot is, to use a racing term, so indifferent a starter, raptorial birds must find it a quarry particularly easy to catch. Therefore, according to the rules of the game of natural selection, as drawn up by the learned brotherhood of zoologists, the coot ought to be as difficult to see as a thief in the night, and should spend its life skulking among rushes, in order to escape its foes. ”

“ The chariness of the moor-hen in diving is the more interesting because the coot, which belongs to the same family, has the same general habits, and has evidently become aquatic by the same gradual process, dives frequently, and is accustomed to feed upon weeds which it pulls up from the bottom of the water. Here is an instance, in which it will also be seen that the coot's manner of diving is very much more formed than the moor-hen's, which may be said to be archaic. ”

“ The coot breeds abundantly in many of the larger inland waters of the northern parts of the Old World, in winter commonly resorting, and often in great numbers, to the mouth of rivers or shallow bays of the sea, where it becomes a general object of pursuit by gunners whether for sport or gain. ”

“ How it makes us turn back home! I made some flattering comment or other on the paper (especially, I recall, starring the verb coot as good hen lore) , and put it with the rest. Then I fell to dreaming. Home! I, John Upton, academic bachelor, had no home, no parents, no kith nor kin. I had my study lined with books, my little monastic bedroom behind it, my college position, and a shabby remnant of my old ambitions. The soft “coot, coot” of a hen picking up grain on the old barn floor! I closed my eyes in delicious memory–memory of my grandfather’s farm down in Essex County. ”

“ Thus, a strong constitution, [83] a good digestion, prolificness, and wariness, enable the coot to thrive, in spite of its showy livery. The first three of the above characteristics enable the species to contend successfully with climate and disease, which are checks on the increase of organisms far more potent than predaceous animals. It is also possible—but this has yet to be demonstrated—that the coot, although edible, is not considered a delicacy by birds of prey, and so is taken when nothing more dainty is obtainable. ”

“ The bald coot is, as we have seen, a rail that has taken thoroughly to an aquatic life. The purple coot may be described as a rail, which, while displaying hankerings after a life on the liquid element, has not definitely committed itself to the water. The porphyrio, then, is a rail which, to use a political expression, is “sitting on the fence.” The indecision of Mr. Porphyrio has somewhat puzzled ornithologists. These seem to be unable to come to an agreement as to what to call him. Jerdon dubs him a coot, Blanford a moor-hen. ”

“ Wallace. The common Black Coot (Fulica atra) "only breeds in certain localities where a large water-weed (Phragmites arundinacea) abounds. The eggs of the Coot are stained and spotted with black on a yellowish-grey ground, and the dead leaves of the reed are of the same colour, and are stained black by small parasitic fungi of the Uredo family; and these leaves form the bed on which the eggs are laid. The eggs and the leaves agree so closely in colour and markings that it is a difficult thing to distinguish the eggs at any distance. ”

“ Neither expostulations nor threats will stay the clamour. The sportsman will enjoy no peace until he sacrifices a coot. If, then, human beings of various sorts and conditions can and do eat the coot, it is absurd to suppose that the creature is unpalatable to birds of prey, some of which will devour even the crow. It is true that I do not remember ever having seen an eagle take a coot, but how few of us ever do see raptorial creatures seize their victims? What is more to the point, some observers have seen coots attacked by birds of prey. ”

“ Never again, we said, would the greedy young bird behave in the unmannerly way which had brought so terrible a castigation upon him! The coot is certainly a good mother who does not spoil her child by sparing the rod. And this is the bird which our comparative anatomists, after pulling it to pieces, tell us is a small-brained, unintelligent creature ”

“ The habitat of the Coot is very extensive, covering the whole of North America, middle America, and the West Indies; north to Greenland and Alaska, south to Veragua and Trinidad.
The Coot is a summer resident in large marshes, and is not often rare in any marshy situation. It arrives the last of April and remains until the last of November. It nests at the same time as the Florida Gallinule (see Birds, Vol. I, p. 121,) but shows a greater preference for reed patches, in which its nests are usually located, often in from two to four feet of water. ”

“ Natural selection has to take animals and plants as it finds them—their good qualities with the bad. If a species comes up to a certain standard, that species will be permitted to survive, in spite of some defects. By the ill-luck of variation the coot has [82] acquired black plumage, but this ill-luck is out-weighed by its good-luck in possessing some favourable characters.
The first of these favourable attributes is a good constitution. Thanks to this the coot is able to thrive in every kind of climate: in foggy, damp England; in the hot, steamy swamps of Sind, and in cold Kashmir. ”

“ The coot is not so abundant as the other two; also he is less varied in his colour, and less lively in his motions, and consequently attracts us less. The moor-hen is the most engaging, as well as the commonest—a bird concerning which more entertaining matter has been related in our natural histories than of any other native species. And I now saw a great deal of him, and of the other two as well. From the cottage windows, and from the lawn outside, one looked upon the main current of the river, and there were the birds always in sight ”

“ Coots, the big black sea coot of the coast and his congeners, not the little mud coot or blue peter of the fresh waters, may be ducks from a scientific point of view, but they were never intended to be included in the prohibition. These dusky gentlemen are wonderful divers, they swim under water almost as readily and rapidly as they fly above it, and seek their food at the bottom. They do not so much live on fish, in fact I have never noticed fish in their stomachs, although some authorities say that they feed on them, but they devour incredible numbers of small clams and oysters. ”

“ Sometimes one would pursue another for a rod or more, in a swift rush that [Pg 145] would make the spray fly and cut a swath on the smooth bosom of the lake.
Several coots now appeared on the scene. Between them and the ruddy ducks there seemed to be a feud of more or less intensity, each being on the offensive or the defensive as the exigencies of naval warfare demanded. Once I was moved to laughter as a coot made a fierce dash toward one of the ducks, and was almost upon her, and I thought she was destined to receive a severe trouncing, when she suddenly dodged her pursuer by diving. ”

“ It seems more likely that the web has been, in most cases, gained by the extension of the slight membrane between the toes, at their junction with one another. Possibly the lobes on the toes of the coot were gained before he became a swimmer, and served the purpose of supporting him on mud or floating vegetation, or, as perhaps is more probable, they may have been developed in accordance with the double requirement. ”

“ Hewitson tells us, upon one occasion when standing up to his knees in water, a nest made of flags and broken reeds afforded him a firm seat. The eggs are of a pale yellowish brown, delicately spotted with dark ashy green, and marked with brown. The Coot when properly prepared before roasting is tolerable eating, otherwise, it becomes imbued with a fishy flavour owing to an oil which exudes from the skin when cooking. During the winter great numbers are killed upon the coast while roosting on the sandbanks. ”

“ Coot.—I counted forty-one old birds on one of the large reedy meres at Afon Wen on May 29th. Messrs. T.A. Coward and Charles Oldham, who were in Lleyn for a few days after I had left, found three or four pairs of Coots at Llyn Glâs fryn, near Pwllheli.
Little Grebe.—To judge from the chattering cries which came from the reeds, this bird is common at the Afon Wen meres. I saw one adult on the open water. These meres presented quite a pleasing scene of bird-life; besides the Coots and Dabchicks, there were numerous Wild Ducks with young broods, Moor-hens, and a pair of Swans. ”

“ In describing what he calls the Carpenter Coot, which seems merely the present bird in immature plumage, he says, “It has its name from the noise it makes; it being customary for these birds to assemble, and knock against pieces of felled timber with their beaks, either in search of insects, or to break the shells of the water-snails, which are common in the ponds and rivers of these parts. The noise they make when thus busied has been not badly likened to that of carpenters at work. And I am deceived if the Clucking-hen makes not a like noise, and for a similar purpose. ”

“ This species is, in my opinion, very closely allied to the Eider, in so much that I frequently call it the Black King-Duck. Along our coasts it commonly receives the name of White-winged Coot. The female is smaller than the male. The young much resemble the female during the first year. ”

“ In winter, although a resident, it collects in large flocks, and many visit the bays and estuaries round the coast, receiving considerable additions to their numbers from the Continent. The Coot is extremely wary and difficult to approach, taking wing on the least sign of danger; it flies well and fast, carrying its legs stretched out behind, but has to run along the surface of the water for some distance before it can rise. The sexes are alike and have the whole of the plumage sooty black, with a narrow white bar across the wing. Bill and frontal plate white ”

“ The coot swims almost as well as the duck or the goose, and at the same time his feet, with their disconnected toes, are better adapted for paddling about amid the watergrass and dense weeds than if they were webbed. ”

“ The Scoter has as many names as characteristics, being called the Sea Coot, the Butter-billed, and the Hollow-billed Coot. The plumage of the full grown male is entirely black, while the female is a sooty brown, becoming paler below. ”

“ We are, therefore, compelled to regard the bald coot as a ribald fellow, who makes merry at the expense of modern zoologists by setting at naught the theory of natural selection as it has been developed of late. ”