LITTLE GREBES' STRUGGLES 279 



when I went near the edge of the water, she (or he) 

 would flirt her tail to display the snowy- white under 

 feathers, and nod her head, and stand up as if to dis- 

 play her pretty green legs, so as to let me see and 

 admire all her colours ; and finally, not being at all 

 shy, she would settle quietly down again. 



The little grebes, too, had chosen that spot to build 

 on. Poor little grebes ! how they worked and sat, and 

 built and sat again, all the summer long. And all 

 along the river it was the same thing the grebes 

 industriously making their nests, and trying ever so 

 hard to hatch their eggs ; and then at intervals of a few 

 days the ruthless water-keeper would come by with his 

 long fatal pole to dash their hopes. For whenever he 

 saw a suspicious-looking bunch of dead floating weeds 

 which might be a grebe's nest, down would come the 

 end of the pole on it, and the eggs would be spilt out of 

 the wet bed, and rolled down by the swift water to the 

 sea. And then the birds would cheerfully set to work 

 again at the very same spot : but it was never easy to 

 tell which bunch of wet weeds their eggs were hidden 

 in. Watching with a glass I could see the hen on her 

 eggs, but if any person approached she would hastily 

 pull the wet weeds from the edge over them, and slip 

 into the water, diving and going away to some distance. 

 While the female sat the male was always busy, diving 

 and catching little fishes ; he would dive down in one 

 spot, and suddenly pop up a couple of yards away, 

 right among the coots and moor-hens. This Jack-in- 



