OF THE BEARDED TIT 173 



Great-crested Grebe a Dabchick's nest on a larger 

 scale. A floating mass of weeds, fished up, wringing 

 wet, from the bottom of the water, looks a hopeless 

 nest for a bird to hatch her eggs in ; but, like a damp 

 haystack, it generates very considerable heat. 



'In a Grebe's nest/ writes Mr. Southwell in the 

 third volume of Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk, 'in 

 which were three eggs and a newly-hatched young one, 

 the thermometer rose to 73, showing that the nest, 

 so far from being the cold and uncomfortable structure 

 by some supposed, was a real hotbed. On inserting the 

 thermometer into a beautifully neat and dry Coot's nest, 

 which the bird had just left, I found the temperature 

 to be 61. The day was wet and cheerless, and the 

 maximum reading of the thermometer in the shade 

 was 58.' 



We saw through our glasses several Crested Grebes 

 playing on the Broad. Oddly enough, the common 

 Little Grebe the 'Dabchick' is less plentiful in 

 Norfolk than it is in St. James's Park, where as many 

 as five or six pairs, all wild birds, commonly nest every 

 year. 



For six or seven pleasant hours we hunted marsh 

 and Broad with eyes and ears open. But not once did 

 we catch sight of a feather, nor once hear the silvery 

 ' ping ' of the note of the Bearded Tit. 



It was, of course, one corner only of a wide district 

 over the whole of which the bird has been well known 

 that we had explored. There are other Broads and 

 marshes where local circumstances may have tempered 



