DIVERS, GREBES, AND CORMORANTS. 167 



here, at some distance from the shore, a large 

 floating nest is made, composed of dead and de- 

 caying vegetation. As the bird is sometimes 

 gregarious several nests may often be found within 

 a small area huge floating rafts moored to the 

 reeds, or built up from the bottom of the shallow 

 water. In a shallow depression at the top four or 

 five eggs are laid, elliptical in shape, chalky in 

 texture, and white, until contact with the bird's wet 

 feet and the wet nest covers them with stains. 

 Several mock nests are often made in the vicinity 

 of the one containing the eggs, probably destined 

 as resting places for the future young. The sitting 

 bird very dexterously covers its eggs with weed 

 when alarmed, previous to slipping off the nest into 

 the water. The note of this Grebe is a loud kak. 



RED-NECKED GREBE. 



This Grebe, the Podicipes griseigena of Boddaert, 

 and the P. rubricollis of most modern naturalists, is 

 a fairly common winter visitor to the seas off our 

 eastern and southern coasts, from the Orkneys to 

 Cornwall. The range of the Red-necked Grebe 

 outside our limits is a wide one, and embraces 

 during summer the sub-Arctic portions of Europe, 

 Asia, and America, becoming much more southerly 

 in winter. During winter this Grebe may be met 

 with close inshore, yet it seldom or never visits the 

 land, living exclusively on the sea. Its habits at 

 this season do not differ in any marked degree 



