This is the smallest of the Rails. A dark slaty colored bird, with back a dark brown thickly spotted with white, gray feathers on the sides and flank spotted and barred with white.
Nest.—These are woven of strips of rushes and grass, nicely cupped to hold the eggs, which number from six to twelve; creamy white, specked all over with reddish brown (1.03 × .75).
FLORIDA GALLINULE.
219. Gallinula galeata. 13 inches.
Plumage gray, changing to blackish about the head; the back a brownish color. Bill and frontal plate bright red, the former being tipped with yellow, legs greenish with a red ring about the top. The grayish side feathers tipped with white at the wing and lower ones with black. They have an almost endless variety of notes; all of them harsh and explosive.
Nest.—They build in colonies in the marshes, making their nests of rushes and grasses woven together and attached to stalks of rushes quite often over the water. They lay from six to ten eggs of a creamy buff color (1.60 × 1.15).
AMERICAN COOT.
221. Fulica americana. 15 inches.
Head and neck nearly black, shading into a gray over the whole bird. Toes lobed and scalloped along the edge; bill white with a blackish band near the tip; shield narrow and brownish, ending in a point.