G. chloronus, Lath. Fulica chlorolzus, Lin. Sze. Com mon Water Hen, Moor-Urn, Marsh-Hen, Moor Coot, Prov. Cuddy Front tawny, bracelets red, body sooty, mixed with olive above, cinereous heneath ; bill red, with a greenish tip ; irides red ; legs greenish. Weighs from fourteen to sixteen ounces; length about fourteen inches ; extent of wing one foot seven inches ; size nearly that of a pigeon. This species inhabits various parts of Europe, America, and the West Indies, and is very commonly found on sedgy and slow rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds, but more rarely in marshes, concealing itself among weeds and rushes during the clay, and swimming about in quest of small fish, insects, aquatic worms, Sze. during the night To get at seeds and other vegetable productions, it will also quit the water. On the surface, either of the water or the land it. flits rapidly on foot from one spot to another, but it flies heavily, and with its legs hanging down. In some countries it is migatory, and in others stationary, or, at least, only descends from the hilly regions to the plains in winter. The female constructs her nest with a large quantity of reeds and rushes, rudely interlaced, and care fully concealed among the aquatic herbage, but placed so near to the stream that the eggs are often swept away by the summer floods, and the young are frequently seized by predacious fishes. But there are two or three broods in
the year, the first of which is always the most numerous, and consists of seven or eight eggs, whereas the others are less numerous in proportion to the lateness of their appearance. They are of a white ground, irregularly spotted with reddish-brown. When the female quits her eggs in the evening in quest of food, she covers them carefully up with herbage, detached from the bottom of the nest, thus concealing them from sight, and keeping them warm. About the end of three weeks, the young arc scarcely hatched when they swim after their mother, who teaches them to search for their food in the water, and every evening reconducts them to their floating cradle, where she affectionately places them under her until they have no longer occasion for her tender services, and have acquired strength and dexterity enough to take care of themselves. The flesh of the common gallinule is es teemed a dainty.