4 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS 



wade and the canes are so thick that it is almost impossible to push 

 a canoe through them. The few nests that we found were near the 

 edges of small ponds or channels and well concealed in the thick 

 growth; the nests were large and well-made structures of dry, dead 

 canes, 2 or 3 feet in diameter and built up 6 or 7 inches above the 

 water. 



The large grebe colonies of the Klamath Lake region in southern 

 Oregon and northern California have been described by several 

 well-known writers. The lakes in this region contain probably the 

 largest western grebe colonies in this country where thousands of 

 them breed in harmony with Caspian and Forster's terms, white 

 pelicans, and other water birds. This region has long been famous 

 as a profitable field for plume hunters, where they have reaped a 

 rich harvest, making $20 or $30 a day and during the height of the 

 breeding season killing several thousand birds a week. The breasts 

 of the western and other grebes were in great demand for the mil- 

 linery trade; for the paltry sum of 20 cents apiece they were stripped 

 off, dried, and shipped to New York. Such slaughter could not 

 have continued much longer without disastrous results. Through 

 the activities of the Audubon Societies, the attention of President 

 Roosevelt was called to the need of protection, and on August 8, 

 1908, he set apart the Klamath Lake Reservation, and on August 18, 

 1908, the Lake Malheur Reservation, thus saving from destruction 

 the largest and most interesting wild-fowl nurseries on the Pacific 

 coast. Mr. W. L. Finley (1907a) has enjoyed good opportunities 

 for studying the western grebes in these colonies and writes thus 

 interestingly of their habits: 



Lower Klamath Lake is a body of water about 25 miles long by 10 or 12 

 miles wide. About its sides are great marshes of tules. The whole border is 

 a veritable jungle, extending out for several miles from the main shore is an 

 almost endless area of floating tule islands, between which is a network of 

 channels. Here, where we found the nesting colony of western grebes, we 

 had good chances to study the habits of these birds. 



About one of these islands we found the floating grebe nests every few feet 

 apart, and counted over 60 in a short distance. We rowed up to one end and 

 landed and then waded along just inside the thick growth of tules that grew 

 along the edge. From this place, partly concealed as we were, we could look 

 through the tules and see the grebes swimming and diving near their nests. 

 Across the channel along the edge of the opposite island were many more grebe 

 nests, and some of the birds were sitting on their eggs. 



The nests of the western grebes were, as a rule, built up of dry reeds higher 

 out of the water than those of the eared grebe. I never saw a case where 

 this bird covered its eggs with reeds before leaving them. Many times we saw 

 them sitting on their eggs during the day. In other cases, they seemed to leave 

 the eggs to be hatched out partly by the sun. The usual number of eggs we 

 found in a set were 3 and 4, although we often found 6 and 7. In several cases, 

 we found places among the dry tules where an extra large set of eggs had been 

 laid. We saw 16 eggs in one set, but there had been no attempt at a nest, and 

 the eggs had never been incubated. 



