470 BRITISH BIRDS. 



breeds in January. The nests are generally floating structures of weeds 

 moored near an island in some reedy sheet of water ; they are seldom 

 hidden in the reeds, and frequently quite in the open. Hume says that in 

 India they are sometimes built in the branches of a tree overhanging the 

 water and a couple of feet above the surface ; this is doubtless in localities 

 liable to sudden floods. I once took a nest in the branches of a willow 

 tree at Riddagshausen, near Brunswick, but the branch was on the water 

 and the nest level with the surface. My son shot at a Waterhen and the 

 report frightened the Little Grebe off the nest before she had time to cover 

 her six eggs. This is the only nest of this bird which I have ever found 

 with more than two eggs in it where they were uncovered. Anderssou 

 C Birds of Damara Land/ p. 347) states that " out of the numerous nests 

 I have taken and seen, in no one instance (except where the nest contained 

 only one or two eggs) did I find the eggs uncovered." Hume remarks 

 that the birds seldom sit much during the day in India, the combined 

 heat of the sun and the fermentation of the weeds being probably 

 sufficient for incubation. I have little doubt that the eggs are covered to 

 keep them warm rather than to conceal them. Both in this country and 

 in India the careful deliberate manner in which the bird takes up in 

 succession two or three bunches of wet weed in her beak from the edge 

 of the nest and deposits them on the eggs before diving into the water has 

 been observed. It is very remarkable how some trifling details in the 

 actions of birds are constant throughout the very extended ranges of some 

 species, whilst other habits, such as the date of breeding and the position 

 of the nest, are altered to suit special conditions. 



Mr. Rryan Hook has furnished me with the following most interesting 

 observations respecting the breeding of the Little Grebe on his father's 

 property near Haslemere. It is much to be regretted that similar details 

 are not more often recorded. " On the 25th of March I found a Dab- 

 chick's nest on one of our small ponds about a foot from the water's edge, 

 partly concealed by a tuft of heather on the bank above it. The pond was 

 at the bottom of a field where a man was ploughing, and at the end of 

 each furrow as he passed the nest the bird first carefully covered her eggs, 

 then slipped into the water without the slightest splash, and remained 

 concealed under the water amongst the reeds close to the nest. A fort- 

 night afterwards I found the old bird very reluctant to move, and when 

 at last she did dive away, she left her eggs uncovered. Two days later 

 I found the old bird sitting in the nest with two young, and all dived 

 away on my approach, the young ones coming up about five yards from 

 the shore, where they floated motionless. I did not see the young birds 

 again until a fortnight later, when I found them on the nest, wonderfully 

 grown and able to dive about fifteen yards. Nearly a month later, on the 

 30th of May, the two young birds were full-grown, and whilst one of the 



