Vol 'i^i9 XVI ] DuBois, Nesting of the Horned Grebe. 173 



I extended my hand toward her she reached out her long neck and 

 delivered a vicious, stinging stab with her sharp bill. The threat- 

 ening attitude of the bird, just previous to striking, is shown in 

 Plate X, fig. 2. 



The exposed situation of this nest is shown in several of the 

 photographs. It consisted of a mass of coarse grasses, many of 

 them fresh and green, floating in about a foot of water, the body 

 of the nest below the water line being of such bulk as to almost 

 touch the muddy bottom. The nest-lining, in the bottom of the 

 well hollowed cavity, was very wet and soggy, being only slightly 

 above the water surface when the nest was unoccupied, and proba- 

 bly below it when the weight of the bird was added to that of the 

 nest. This lining was composed of decaying vegetation which 

 was decidedly warm to the touch, in the sunshine, while the wet 

 rim of the nest was cold. 



The eggs of this set were taken. They were of course in various 

 stages of incubation, from fresh in the last, to well begun in the 

 first-laid egg. For some time after I had left the empty nest, 

 taking the camera with me, the two Grebes swam to and fro 

 beside it, or circled around it, frequently going to the nest and 

 climbing part way up. Occasionally one of the birds, presumably 

 the female, sat upon the nest for a brief period, shifting herself 

 in a restless manner, and then returned to the water. 



For several days I stayed away. Would these birds nest again 

 in this small and rapidly diminishing slough at so late a season? 

 Would they leave the slough and go elsewhere to nest? Or would 

 they abandon the duty of reproduction altogether? These ques- 

 tions seemed of sufficient interest to demand further observations, 

 but not wishing to further inject the factor of the human menace 

 into their already complicated affairs, I left the birds entirely to 

 themselves. Meanwhile extremely dry warm weather was causing 

 rapid evaporation and the slough was shrinking very perceptibly. 



My next visit, on the eighteenth of June, disclosed the fact that 

 the Grebes were not only present but were building a new nest not 

 far from the old one. The nest seemed nearly completed. The 

 two birds were floating near each other on the open water, preen- 

 ing their plumage in the ostentatious manner previously described. 



At seven-thirty on the morning of June 21, the new nest con- 



