HAUNTS OF COOT.
On nearly all the reservoirs the number of birds, and indeed their variety, is scarcely credible. One of the old punt-gun- ners (who worked with a sort of cannon set on a swivel in the bow of a flat-bottom boat) might kill several score of widgeon at a shot if he were allowed to practise his rather nefarious art on the waters of Staines. Favourite bays of these reservoirs arc as black with coot as an elm where the rooks roost ; and they so multiply as to threaten the eviction of rarer and more desirable wildfowl. The gull is a scavenger and so perhaps more dangerous ; but if any bird must be driven from the reservoirs it is rather the coot than the black-headed gull that should come first. The moorhen (which ought to be called the waterhen) is only less numerous, and on some orna- mental waters is found quite irrepressible.
W. BEaeu T11031.18..
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