Durnford found the Red-fronted Coot common, and breeding in the lagoons north of Buenos Ayres. The nests of this bird and of _F. leucoptera_, he tells us, are much alike, but those of the present species are perhaps rather the smaller. "They are formed of reeds, and placed in clumps of the same, the bottom just above the water. The eggs vary in number from six to eight, and also differ a good deal in colour. Their ground-colour is dark greyish brown, finely mottled and streaked with rufous and darker brown, some of the spots being of a considerable size." 381. FULICA LEUCOPTERA, Vieill. (YELLOW-BILLED COOT.) +Fulica leucoptera+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 505 (Paraná); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 140; _iid. P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 468; _iid. Ex. Orn._ pl. lx. p. 119; _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 195 (Buenos Ayres); _White, P. Z. S._ 1883, p. 42 (Cordova); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 277 (Carhué, Pampas); _Withington, Ibis_, 1888, p. 472 (Lomas de Zamora). _Description._--Dark slaty; head and neck black; crissum white, with a black median patch; bend of wing and outer margin of external primary, also the tips of some of the secondaries, white; bill yellow; head-shield rounded behind; feet olivaceous: whole length 15·0 inches, wing 7·8, tail 2·0. _Female_ similar. _Hab._ Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Bolivia. This is perhaps the most abundant species of _Fulica_ in the Plata region, and certainly congregates in the largest numbers. The colour of the beak and shield is of a very delicate yellow; the legs and feet dull green; the head, neck, and part of the back velvet-black; all the rest of the plumage dark slate-colour, except the under coverts of the tail, which are white, and render the bird very conspicuous when it is swimming away with the tail raised vertically. On the pampas, in large marshy lagoons, this Coot is sometimes seen in immense numbers; thousands of birds uniting in one flock, and spreading over the low shores to feed, they look like a great concourse of Rooks. But they are exceedingly timid, and at the sight of a bird of prey or other enemy they all scuttle back to the water, tumbling over each other in their haste to reach it. They rise in a peculiar manner, rapidly striking the surface of the water with their great lobed feet, often for a distance of twenty or thirty yards before they are fully launched in the air. They are loquacious birds, and when swimming about concealed among the thick rushes are heard answering each other in a variety of curious tones, some of their loud, hollow-sounding, reiterated cries resembling peals of laughter. The nest is a slovenly structure of rushes lying on the water, with a very slight depression for the eggs, which are ten or twelve in number. These are long, pointed at one end, dull cream-colour, marked over the whole surface with small blackish and purple spots. Fam. XLIV. ARAMIDÆ, or COURLANS.