10 Abbott, Summer Bird-life of the Newark Marshes. [j^ n 



his balance and have to step off, but he persistently kept at his 

 game, and it really appeared to me that he did it more for the fun 

 than for what he was getting in the way of food. 



"In feeding on the water I never saw the Gallinules dive com- 

 pletely under the surface like the Grebes ; they simply ducked their 

 heads under. On such occasions it was a common thing to see 

 them bring up a large bunch of duckweed and pick at certain 

 places as though they were looking for insects or snails. Once I 

 observed four birds at the same time busily engaged in drawing 

 the duckweed toward their bodies and turning it over with their 

 bills in this way. Occasionally, however, we saw the birds swallow 

 large pieces of the duckweed, roots and all, so they evidently also 

 fed upon the weed itself. 



"In caring for their young the Gallinules pass food to them if 

 they are very small, but in no case place it in their bills. The 

 older youngsters find their own food altogether. Both parents 

 apparently tend the young, for we saw one family of seven very 

 young birds with two adults getting food for them, and these were 

 the only two out of a number round about which showed any inter- 

 est in the youngsters. 



"We found three dead birds, one adult and a downy young, 

 floating close to each other in one of the pools, and a dead adult 

 on the railroad tracks. One adult was found to have started 

 moulting. All the Gallinules' nests seen were empty. But some 

 of the Grebes were still mating, at least so we interpreted the action 

 of a couple of birds who were playing with and chasing each other. 

 One of them would at times dive and, swimming under water, 

 come up beside the other. Then they would fly after each other 

 so close to the water that their feet patted on the surface. Beyond 

 this we did not observe much new in the habits of the Grebes, as 

 we only saw six or eight and these were very shy and would not 

 allow a close approach like the Gallinules. We found, however, 

 another Grebe's nest containing six eggs about a week old. It was 

 close by the nest you found on June 17, and was perhaps a second 

 attempt of the same pair of birds. We made careful measurements 

 of the nest, as follows: Eighteen inches in diameter at the water 

 line; nest cavity four and one half inches in diameter and one and 

 one half inches deep; top of the nest two and one half inches above 



