DIVERS, GREBES, AND CORMORANTS. 167 
here, at some distance from the shore, a large | 
floating nest is made, composed of dead and de- 
caying vegetation. As the bird is sometimes 
gregarious several nests may often be found within 
a small area—huge floating rafts moored to the 
reeds, or built up from the bottom of the shallow 
water. In a shallow depression at the top four or 
five eggs are laid, elliptical in shape, chalky in 
texture, and white, until contact with the bird’s wet 
feet and the wet nest covers them with stains. 
Several mock nests are often made in the vicinity 
of the one containing the eggs, probably destined 
as resting places for the future young. The sitting 
bird very dexterously covers its eggs with weed 
when alarmed, previous to slipping off the nest into 
the water. The note of this Grebe is a loud £a&. 
RED-NECKED GREBE. 
This Grebe, the Podtczpes grisezgena of Boddaert, 
and the P. ruéricollis of most modern naturalists, is 
a fairly common winter visitor to the seas off our 
eastern and southern coasts, from the Orkneys to 
Cornwall. The range of the Red-necked Grebe 
outside our limits is a wide one, and embraces 
during summer the sub-Arctic portions of Europe, 
Asia, and America, becoming much more southerly 
in winter. During winter this Grebe may be met 
with close inshore, yet it seldom or never visits the 
land, living exclusively on the sea. Its habits at 
this season do not differ in any marked degree 
