3i6 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



these points there is, no doubt, considerable variation. 

 Here, then, was something new in the domestic 

 life of the dabchick. For two days after this I was 

 too busy elsewhere to come to the stream, but on the 

 morning of the third I got there about 6.30, and 

 climbed into the same tree as before. I did not 

 see either of the dabchicks, but heard them dipping 

 about, some way lower down the stream, as I had 

 before, when they did not come to the nest. I 

 therefore came down and climbed another tree, and, 

 as soon as I had done so, I saw a little beyond 

 me — about as far from the first pseudo-nest as 

 the latter was from the nest itself — two other 

 structures, a few feet from each other, both of 

 which had more or less the look of a moorhen's 

 nest. In one of these sat, with an air of absolute 

 proprietorship, a dabchick with one chick, and here 

 they remained till the partner bird swam up, a little 

 while afterwards, when they came off, and there 

 was the usual pretty scene. The chick had been 

 sitting, not, as it appeared to me, in the basket or 

 depression of the nest, but only just beyond the 

 edge of it, as though — and this I had noticed on 

 the former occasion — it had struggled up as high as 

 it could, and there remained. 



From now till about a quarter to 9, when they 

 all went ofF, and I came down, both the old birds 

 frequently ascended and sat in this nest, whilst 

 one or other of the chicks — for there were now 

 two, if not three — tried to do so too, but never 

 succeeded in getting quite over the edge of it, 

 though struggling to accomplish this feat. The 

 old birds, too, had necessarily to make a much 



