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.In England the sport of Coot-shooting is pursued to some extent on the broads and back-waters of the eastern counties in Southampton Water, Christchurch Bay, and at Slapton Lay and is often conducted battue- fashion by a number of guns. But even in these cases the numbers killed in a day seldom reach more than a few hundreds, and come very short of those that fall in the officially-organized chasses of the lakes near the coast of Languedoc and Provence, of which an excellent description is given by the Vicomte Louis de Dax.[1] 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. After this the bird should be left to soak for the night in cold spring-water, which will make it look as white and delicate as a chicken. Without this process the skin after roasting is found to be very oily, with a fishy flavour, and if the skin be taken off the flesh becomes dry and good for nothing (Hawker s Inspections to Young Sportsmen ; Hele s Notes about Aldeburgh).
The Coot is found throughout the Palrcarctic Region from Iceland to Japan, and in most other parts of the world is represented by nearly allied species, having almost the same habits. An African species (F. cristata), easily distin guished by a red caruncle on its forehead, is of rare appear ance in the south of Europe. The Australian and North American species (F. australis and F. americana) have very great resemblance to our own bird ; but in South America half-a-dozen or more additional species are found which range to Patagonia, and vary much in size, one (F. gigantea) being of considerable magnitude. The remains of a very large species (F. newtoni] have been discovered in Mauritius, where it must have been a contemporary of the Dodo, but like that bird is now extinct.
(a. n.)
COOTE, Sir Eyre (1726-1783), a celebrated general, born at Limerick in 1726, was the son of a clergyman. He served against the Pretender in 1745, and in 1754 sailed for India to join the army of Clive. In 1760, having attained the rank of colonel for his services at Plassy and Calcutta, he was sent to the Carnatic, where he took Wandewash and defeated Lally. For these exploits lie received on his return to England a jewelled sword from the East India Company, and a vote of thanks from the House of Commons. In 1769 he was appointed to the chief command in Madras ; but in the next year, having quarrelled with the governor, he returned to England. He was made Knight of the Bath, colonel of the 7th Foot, and governor of Fort St George. In 1780 he returned to Calcutta as commander-in-chief in Bengal and member of the supreme council. Soon after he was sent by Warren Hastings into the Carnatic, where Hyder Ali was seriously threatening the British possessions; and on the 1st July 1781 he won a decided victory at Ponto Novo, which checked the advance of his antagonist. But there was a serious deficiency of supplies, and in the next year Coote returned to Calcutta. Notwithstanding his feeble health, he again set sail in the spring of 1783 for Madras. His ship was pursued by the French ; and this annoyance, acting upon his broken constitution and now extremely irritable temper, brought on a third fit of apoplexy, causing his death on the 26th April 1783. A monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
A very flattering account of Coote is given by Wilks in his His torical Sketches of Mysore, 1810 ; see also Hill s British India.
almost colourless transparent mass to a bright yellowish brown, having a conchoidal fracture, and, when dissolved in alcohol, spirit of turpentine, or any other suitable men struum, forming one of the most valuable varnishes. Like many other commercial substances, copal is obtained from a variety of sources ; the term is not uniformly applied or restricted to the products of any particular region or series of plants, but is vaguely used for resins which, though very similar in their physical properties, differ somewhat in their constitution, and are altogether distinct as to their source. Thus the resin obtained from Tracliylob mm Hornemannianum is known in commerce as Zanzibar copal, or gum anime. Madagascar copal is the produce of T. verrucosum. From Guibourtia copallifera is obtained Sierra Leone copal, and another variety of the same resin is found in a fossil state on the west coast of Africa, probably the produce of a tree now extinct. From Brazil and other South American countries, again, copal is obtained which is yielded by Trachyldbium Martianum, Hymen&a Courbaril, and various other species, while the danimar resins and the piney varnish of India are occasionally classed and spoken of as copal. Of the varieties abovo enumerated by far the most important in a commercial point of view is the Zanzibar or East African copal, yielded by Trachylobium Hornemannianum. The resin is found in two distinct conditions : 1st, raw or recent, called by the inhabitants of the coast sandarusiza rniti or chakazi, the latter name being corrupted by Zanzibar traders into "jackass" copal ; and 2d, ripe or true copal, the sandarusi inti of the natives. The raw copal, which is obtained direct from the trees, or found at their roots or near the surface of the ground, is not regarded by the natives as of much value, and does not enter into European commerce. It is sent to India and China, where it is manufactured into a coarse kind of varnish. The true or fossil copal is found embedded in the earth over a wide belt of the mainland coast of Zanzibar, on tracks where not a single tree is now visible. The copal is not found at a greater depth in the ground than 4 feet, and it is seldom the diggers go deeper than about 3 feet. It occurs in pieces varying from the size of small pebbles up to masses of several ounces in weight, and occasionally lumps weighing 4 or 5 Ib have been obtained ; and it is said that one piece of 35 Ib weight has been found. After garbling and freeing from foreign matter, the resin is submitted to various chemical operations for the purpose of clearing the " goose-skin," the name given to the peculiar pitted-like surface possessed by fossil copal. The goose-skin was formerly supposed to be caused by the impression of the small stones and sand of the soil into which the soft resin fell in its raw condition ; but Dr Kirk states that the copal whan first dug up has no trace of the goose-skin on it. He believes the appearance to arise from an oxidation of the surface taking place to a certain depth after exposure to the air, or to be caused by some molecular change which renders the skin more brittb than the inner mass. The copal digging is conducted by the natives in a careless and desultory manner, and the whole trade is, as usual in dealings with untutored tribeSj surrounded with many difficulties. It is believed that the supply is practically inexhaustible, and with proper organization the trade would be a permanent source of support to a larger community than at present inhabits the copal-yielding regions. A large proportion of the resin is
sent to the European market by way of Bombay j but con-
- ↑ " La Volee aux Macreuses." Nouveaux Souvenirs de Chasse et !. I iche dans le midide la France, pp. 53-65 (Paris : 1860).
