THE SUBMERGED TENTH 



until the eggs were entirely hidden, when she would 

 slide off into the water with a push of the feet that 

 gave quite a little momentum. Some of them dove 

 at once and came up a short distance away, while 

 others remained on the surface. The fact of my 

 having only head and shoulders out of water evi- 

 dently made them less afraid of me than they would 

 have been had I been in a boat. The birds were 

 more or less scattered about in the lake, yet groups 

 of them remained within a few feet of me, appar- 

 ently trying to make out what new species of Musk- 

 rat this could be. 



I should judge that there must have been up- 

 wards of a hundred nests right around me, and how 

 many more there were off in the grass I cannot say. 

 Certainly it was a large colony, for the whole slough 

 seemed alive with Grebes, and all of the one species. 

 The nests were floating quite close together, often 

 touching one another. There was very little grass 

 growing out of the water, and the nests were not 

 anchored, except as they rested more or less on the 

 floating debris. This held them in a measure, but 

 it seemed likely that a strong wind might drive 

 them from their location. Most of the nests were 

 covered, and I bobbed about among them, removing 

 the coverings to see how many eggs there were. It 

 was evident that the laying operations of the colony 

 were not complete, for some of the nests were 

 empty, or had but a single egg. Only two that I 

 saw had as many as five eggs, three or four being 

 the usual number. 



These observations made, I stayed for nothing 

 further; indeed haste was necessary, for my sunny 



5 



